


Pizza for Two

by polarising



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Gender-neutral Reader, Reader Is Not Frisk, Reader-Insert, Robot Kink, Smut, ayo here are the 19/02/16 tag additions, i tried to keep it relatively neutral but i apologise for any slip-ups, i'm more used to writing females in place of the reader, sighh, welp the sex is outta the way now at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 50,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5463305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polarising/pseuds/polarising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pizza place is significantly warmer than your apartment, and you're bitter about it.</p><p>But the guy in the penthouse literally emits heat, and suddenly you don't mind late night orders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you'd accept the invitation but your boss doesn't want you fucking on the job

**Author's Note:**

> i'm jumping on the bandwagon of sin

 

Snow falls in a flurry outside the pizza shop window, and you lean your elbows on the counter, watching it. You didn't particularly want to spend the week before Christmas working, especially not with the long, dark nights and cold air, but secretly you were thankful to at least be somewhere warm - your apartment's heating had broken down a few weeks earlier, making every winter minute in there a living hell.

You laugh as you think this. Considering how fiery and hot Hell is, you'd give anything to be there instead of huddled under six blankets and four sweaters during the nights.

You jump as your coworker shuts an oven door rather viciously, snapping you out of your trance-like state. "If I make this, you can deliver it, right?"

"Uh, sure," you say without thinking. "Where to?"

"That high-end apartment block you pass to get here. Near the estate," she says, dusting her hands as the dough begins to cook in the oven. You notice that she'd put it on full heat, completely ignoring the manager's rule of 'no substituting quality due to time constraints'. It didn't really matter to you. You were no do-gooder yourself and you'll admit that you'd do the same if it meant getting off work quicker. She'd been there a lot longer than you had, and being a newbie you'd been given very flexible hours, meaning that your boss was free to call you in at random points if there were no other people for the job. This proved especially infuriating on days like these.

She tosses the oven mitt onto the counter next to you and slides the receipt across. "Hey. Check it. Guy lives in the penthouse. The fuck is he doing ordering from here?"

"Maybe he just likes our food."

"Kid, I wouldn't eat here if it was the last place on earth. We make greasy, deep-fried junk, not-" she peers at the paper, "-'thin base crust with smoked ham, sundried tomatoes and watercress'. Someone sounds like they're reluctantly dieting, or just really fucking pretentious."

"What did they sound like?" A beep interrupts your speech, and your coworker replies while tending to the pizza.

"I dunno. Like, kinda...middle-y?"

"That tells me nothing."

"Okay, their voice sounded kinda higher-pitched. Everything was pronounced almost perfectly. Hard to tell over the phone, though. Everyone sounds like a robot through that thing." You shrug and watch her lamely toss on tomato base and cheese before waving her hands. "God, do we even _have_ all that posh stuff to put on?"

You shrug again. She rolls her eyes.

"Whatever. They won't care."

 

\---

 

There's no traffic on the roads, and only a few monsters that had already developed immunity to the cold hanging around on the streets. Whenever you have to stop your motorcycle at a red light, you shiver and wrap your arms around yourself to stay warm. You've never been happier to see that particular apartment block, with its ugly neon green sign and standing tall in all its concrete glory.

 You pull up in the parking lot and move so fast that you nearly drop the pizza box in your rush to get off the bike, pick up the goods, and get inside. A rush of warm air greets you from the overhead heater as you step through the glass doors, and the doorman looks up with a raised eyebrow at your sigh of relief.

"Pizza delivery," you say breathlessly as you approach the desk. "Uhh...penthouse. Top floor."

"Really?" the doorman says, giving you a suspicious look. "I'm gonna have to ask to see that receipt before I buzz you up. Just making sure you're not trying to sneak in."

You reluctantly dig the crumpled receipt from your jacket pocket and hand it to him. He scans it over before shrugging and passing it back. "Well. Never struck me as the kinda guy to order _pizza_ , but shows how much I know. Have fun, kid."

Who the _fuck_ lives up there that requires a receipt check and a 'one-of-those' looks before letting a pizza deliverer up?

You're buzzed through the doors, and step into the elevator. No way are you taking the stairs. There are two stick-on rhinestones on the top floor button, and you press it nervously. The ride up takes forever - whether it's the repetitive music grinding on your last nerve or the slow clunks reminding you that it's travelling at approximately three miles-per-hour, you don't know.

You feel drained just from the elevator ride once you reach the top, stepping out onto burgundy carpet and sighing. The hallway is shorter than you'd expect it to be, with one single door at the end of it and almost painfully narrow walls that feel like they're closing in on you for whatever reason.

You pick up your pace slightly as you approach the door and knock.

Whoever it is takes a long time to answer.

"Oh! Finally. I was wondering what the hold-up was, darling."

You let the words 'I thought the same while waiting for you to open the door' pass your lips before looking up more and realising who it is that you're talking to.

Oh, fucking hell. Of course it is.

The robot gives you an incredulous look coupled with a small smirk. He doesn't have the shoulder spikes on that you're used to seeing him wear on TV, and he's sporting a pink mohair sweater and black shorts over his curvaceous frame. Even without the heeled boots, he still towers over you. "...Well, someone's in a good mood." You don't appreciate his condescending tone, and the fact that he crouches to speak to you at eye level doesn't help, either. "And what would be the matter?"

"...It's cold as shit outside, I'm freezing, working long nights, there are only two of us there so I have to do all the deliveries, my apartment heating is broke and my boss would sooner fire me than call the cops upon finding my frozen, lifeless body on my sofa."

"We're talking hypothetically, right?"

"I wouldn't be here delivering your pizza otherwise." Mettaton's personality isn't all that different to how he is on stage. Just less shouty and showy and more subdued. He's actually surprisingly easy to talk to and you get the feeling that he doesn't really care about your snarky comments. "Speaking of which, here you go."

He takes the box from you and stands up normally again. "That's wonderful. But, uh, would you like to come in and warm up or something? I have-"

"No- I mean, that's a kind offer, and I very much appreciate it, but I'm on a tight schedule," you lie. You're not going to become this robot's newest one night stand. You've seen the scandals in the tabloids that you'll shamelessly admit to reading, and as curious as you might be about how it all works, you don't particularly want to find out.

Not right now, anyway.

He raises his visible eyebrow at you. You wonder silently how that works, considering his face is made of...metal, right? Uh. "Oh? That's unlike a fan, turning down an offer to spend some quality time with _moi_ in my very own penthouse." He says it like it's the most prestigious thing he could've offered you, when a pair of gloves would have done the job.

"I'm on a tight schedule," you repeat, avoiding admitting to not being that much of a fan of him. You don't really care for his electro-synth music, nor do you tune in regularly to his shows. If they're on, you'll watch them, but you won't go out of your way to catch them. You could appreciate him as a person, though. Or a robot, you guess. He was pretty charming in interviews and the like and you'd be lying if you said you didn't thoroughly enjoy his suave voice and overly-flirtatious personality.

"You only have to step in and stand by the fire, darling. Or," he holds out his free hand, "I could help you out right here."

"What."

He chuckles. "Take that however you want to, but just give me your hands first."

You stick one hand out, and he reaches next to you to grab the other one too. He can just about hold both of your hands in one of his and- oh god, his hand is really warm.

"That's...actually really nice," you confess, smiling slightly.

"Good. I knew it would be." He keeps holding your hands for another few moments before letting go of them, and you want to whine and ask him to hold them again. "Now, what do I owe you?"

"Nothing...?"

"For the pizza, darling."

"Oh, right." You pull the receipt from your pocket again, along with a pen, and you set it on the top of the pizza box that he's holding. "I just need a signature. And then payment, obviously. But signature first."

"Is this a sly way of trying to get a free autograph from me?"

You forgot that this receipt alone could probably sell for big bucks with _the_ Mettaton's signature on it. "It says 'customer signature' right there. There," you point at it. "and no, I promise not to try and use it as an autograph."

He laughs softly and signs it while you idly look around, avoiding eye contact. You look back when he taps the pen down and quickly take both articles back, and Mettaton looks almost offended when you shove the receipt back in your pocket without folding it.

"Thanks. That'll be $6.49, please."

He presses a $10 bill to your chest with a wink. "Keep the change."

"Alright...?" you say, feeling cheated. You'd have thought that a star like him would have more of a tip to offer, but it isn't your place to be bitter about that.

 "You're welcome back any time, cutie," he smirks, and you nod with pursed lips, knowing that everyone who shows up for one reason or another probably gets this speech. "Maybe I'll find a better way of warming you up, who knows?"

You'll be damned if that wasn't the hottest thing you've ever had said to you, and your face is no longer freezing. It's positively thawing out at the speed of sound with the hot mess of words melting from his lips.

 You hastily force out a goodbye and step back to the elevator. Unfortunately, your escape isn't as quick as you'd like it to be, because some fucker had called for it on another floor, so you awkwardly stand in front of the doors, silently begging for them to open while repeatedly mashing the button in the hopes that it'll come up. Mettaton leans against his door frame, watching you with a smirk. You try not to look at him but you're pretty sure he saw you side-eyeing him, because he flashes his visible eyebrow at you when you do.

The elevator dings, at long last, and you nearly trip trying to get in the doors. The last thing you hear is a robotic-sounding 'toodles' and a door shut.

 

\---

 

You hoped that you'd never have to deliver to the penthouse again, so of course you're assigned to go and deliver another pizza there the very next day.

"Why me?" you moan.

"Because there's me, making the pizzas, and there's you, standing around doing nothing. Besides, there's a note for you in the delivery instructions." Your coworker smiles coyly as she points at the cash register screen.

"Wh-..." You peer at it. Same order as yesterday, except 'send your cutest delivery person' is in the instructions box.

"Whoever's up there must really like you. I wondered what took you so long last time."

You sigh and roll your eyes. "There could have been _anyone_ working here tonight. What would we have done if there were twenty of us here?"

"We aim to please the customer, obviously, so we still would have sent you."

"Are you hitting on me?"

She gives you a sardonic laugh. "I'll get started on the pizza."

 

\---

 

The drive there seems to take forever and the night seems to be getting colder with every rev of the engine. You're almost thankful when you reach the apartment block. Almost. Not quite.

"Again?" the doorman says, pressing the buzzer immediately. 

"Guy gets hungry."

"Not for pizza, kid."

You ignore him and go straight through, gripping the pizza box like your life depends on it. The elevator takes longer than last time, which gives you plenty of time to contemplate how exactly you're going to deflect the celebrity's advances. You come up with a fair few solutions, but quickly find that all of them could very easily be twisted into flirtations. You wouldn't put it past Mettaton to interpret your one-word answers as 'playing hard to get'.

For some reason, you imagine him saying those four words when you think them, and then your brain tacks a 'darling' onto the end and you realise that you're a lot more attracted to his voice than you probably show. Even the thought of it makes you want to melt.

You absentmindedly wonder how good he is at cuddling. Yeah. Just cuddling. You'd imagine it'd be pretty uncomfortable, since he's made of mostly metal, which would be a shame because his size means that he could totally be the big spoon and _oh my god_ , you _really_ need to stop thinking about cuddling the robot.

You're pretty sure your face is red by the time you reach the top floor and step out. _Just deliver the pizza and leave._

It's hard to do that when he answers the door in a loose crop top and _really short_ cotton shorts, leaning against the frame and looking down at you expectantly.

"Back so soon, sweetheart?"

"You ordered," you say, masking your desperate desire to- uh, give him a hug.

"I did indeed, and I see they didn't let me down with my special instructions."

"I was the only one available to deliver."

His smile remains fixed on his face, but then momentarily widens. "I certainly hope they get someone else in soon, because your attention is going to be elsewhere for a while. Oh, and I knew you were the only one available tonight. You told me so yesterday."

You pause, just looking him in the eyes. Admittedly, his eyes weren't the first thing you noticed when you saw his thighs in those shorts and his impossibly small waist and the little box holding a heart on his belt. But now you see that he has his fringe clipped back with two hot pink slides, and the rest of his hair is pulled back into a small ponytail. This, in turn, exposes his other eye and the other half of his face, which isn't any different to the rest of his face. You wonder why he keeps it covered up and then turn your attention back to how cute he looks with a ponytail.

Because he does. He looks really damn cute.

"Darling, I know I'm attractive, but right now I'm just in loungewear and dare I say that if you're speechless at _this_ -" He gestures down his body, "then when you see me in stage makeup and gear, you will positively pass out." He gently pushes your open mouth closed with one warm finger.

"Now, I absolutely insist that you come inside for at least a little bit. It's colder tonight than it was last night. I refuse to believe you don't want to get warmed up."

You step inside wordlessly. [His apartment](http://www.ecouponspy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/colorful-interior-decor-living-room-also-pink-also-white-wall-paint-also-rug-under-coffee-table-also-wall-shelves-also-slim-screen-tv-near-red-floor-lamp.jpg) has - surprise, surprise - a pink, black and white colour scheme, but it's done very tastefully, with the white walls and furniture, pink floors, and some black main pieces and accents. His sofa is leather, with a creamy faux fur blanket draped over the back. The only pictures on the wall...surprisingly, exist within this big frame mounted near the entrance to his kitchen, and they're all selfies with fans. That's really sweet. You didn't think he'd legitimately care that much.

He sees you looking and smiles, but gently directs your shoulders towards the fireplace. You're still holding the pizza box.

You turn and suddenly try to _give_ him the pizza box, but you end up whacking it against his heart box thing. He flinches and holds his hands up defensively. It can't have hurt, since he's metal and the box is cardboard, but he seems to have a bit of a delayed overreaction, and he presses a hand to his forehead.

" _Oh,_ darling!" _Stop making dramatic sex sounds,_ you think, but you don't really mean it; in fact, you encourage it. He takes the box from you. "You got me."

He looks down at you for a reaction, and smirks when you just take in a deep breath and push it out again.

What part of him are you attracted to, here? In the elevator you were heating up thinking about cuddling him, and now you're silently begging him to make more of those sounds. You ask yourself honestly, would you prefer him to offer you sex or cuddles?

Both. Both is good.

"My my, something must be wrong. You haven't spoken a word since you got here." He gently pokes at your cheek. "Earth to darling, come in, darling," he says mockingly.

"...Yeah?"

"Sit," he commands, pointing his finger down at the sofa. It's almost disturbing how quickly you obey. The heat from the fire is already starting to warm you up, and you stick your hands out, fingers splayed as if it was right in front of you. Customer signature, payment, leave. That's all you were supposed to do.

You're not sure how long you spent near that fire, but your hands (and a good amount of the rest of you) are sufficiently warm by the time you come fully back to your senses. Mettaton is sitting across a stylish-looking armchair, with his head tilted back on one of the armrests and his legs over the other. 

"Customer signature, payment, leave," you recite out loud. Mettaton turns his head to look at you.

"Blush, warm up..." A pause. "...payment, leave."

You don't hear him. Or at least, you ignore the pause in between his words. "Can I get that payment, then?"

"Which one, gorgeous?"

"Pizza. I-I mean, you don't owe me anything else."

"Oh, but _you_ owe _me._ "

"Since when?!"

He smiles. "Use of my fireplace, of course! I don't give my services out for free, darling."

You swear to yourself that you won't become this robot's next one night stand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s i n b i n
> 
> i kind of (really) want to get straight into the Kinkies but also i wanna fuck with you all and make this some mushy slow build fic with optional sex and a lot of innuendos (but also a lotta cuteness too!)
> 
> so it might turn into 'let's see how badly i can fuck up gender-neutral smut'.....or i might just write two separate ones for dfab/dmab people idk
> 
>  
> 
> ily all have a lovely christmas sweethearts <3
> 
> tumblr: polarise.co.vu


	2. *insert 'you tried' star here*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinkies it is
> 
> or semi-stuff, at least. a lil handsy
> 
> also there's kind of a suicide joke but it's not in reference to anyone it's just like nervous thoughts

You swore to yourself that you wouldn't become this robot's next one night stand.

However, you have to question your ability at keeping promises to yourself while you sit with your legs on either side of Mettaton's hips, your hands nervously hovering over his heart while he lounges back against the armrest and watches you with a smirk.

You're not quite sure how it got to this point. You'd warmed yourself up, asked about payment... 

Well, asked how you could repay him for 'use of his fireplace'. Kind of a stupid idea, in hindsight, since you weren't sure if he was joking to begin with, but you didn't want to end up on his bad side.

This side - the front side that you're currently straddling - is only marginally better. 

"Go ahead," he laughs, referring to your increasingly shaky hands drawing ever closer to his heart. You'd heard rumours that it was sensitive for him, but obviously not many had the chance to test it out. You poke it. It pulsates, and leaves a little transparent filmy coat on the tip of your finger.

"Do I have to guide you through everything, sweetheart?" He takes your hand and places your palm across the top of it. It's surprisingly warm, and covered in pink slime that squishes out from the sides of your fingers. "Your words, your job..."

His breath hitches as he squeezes your hand against it. Why does his breath hitch? He's a robot. His breath is for decoration. Not that you're complaining.

You just look at him, wide-eyed. He gives you a small laugh. "Well? Go on. It's not too hard, darling. Like kneading dough, I'd assume, and you're pretty good at that."

You don't have the heart (ha) to tell him that you're not the one making the pizza; if this whole encounter is a reward for making good food, then you probably shouldn't tell your coworker. She'll be horrifically jealous that you're getting to do this and not her.

You roll the bottom of your palm over the top of it. It's weird and sticky, and even ickier when you dig your fingertips into the curves around it. He tilts his head back over the armrest again with a sigh, letting it hang back so you can't properly see his face, and stretches his legs out further, which lifts you up slightly. The suddenness of it makes you grip his heart tighter as a response, since it doesn't have a shoulder or anything else to grab for support, and he yelps dramatically and sits up again.

"Aren't we rough," he chastises, but you can tell he doesn't mean it because he still has that slightly open-mouthed breathy smirk on his face.

"I-I'm sorry."

"Oh, darling, there's no need. An unfortunate chain of reactions is all. Just tell me if you intend to try to literally squeeze the life out of me again, alright?" His heart is his soul, isn't it? Oh, shit. "I'm pretty sure we have to establish some kind of safeword before stepping into sadomasochistic territory."

 You can't even stutter on anything because you're just fucking speechless.

He winks.

Fuck him. Literally.

"Don't we...need, like, mood music or something?" you force out, adding a self-conscious laugh at the end for good measure. His smirk falters for a split second, and you're afraid that you might have...offended him?

"You're the first to have ever suggested that, actually. I could get up and switch the stereo on, but I'm quite comfortable."

The fact that he points out that you're 'the first' of people makes you a little _less_ comfortable. It makes you think that you don't really mean much to him.

You know you don't, but a while you could've pretended that you did before returning to your unexciting dead-end job.

"Darling? You doing okay up there?"

You knead his heart again without verbally responding and he moans. It's fun, at least, but now you're a little depressed. It's like when you sit alone in your apartment sadly getting yourself off, just because there's nobody else around and your crotch is a comfortable place to rest your hand and _fuck it, you can._

You laugh at yourself, and another, more sincere-looking smile lights up Mettaton's face. Is he smiling because you're laughing? That's cute.

"...What?" he asks suspiciously, side-eyeing you with the little smile still there.

"Nothing, I-"

"'Nothing'? Really? You're going with that?"

"I just-"

"You're about to fuck me and you still insist on hiding what you're laughing at?"

Now that he's put it into perspective, he has a point. "I was thinking about...uh, how different this is to just sitting alone at home doing it."

"Doing _what,_ sweetheart?" Oh, he knows. You _know_ he knows. He just wants to hear you say it.

"Like...getting off."

"While thinking of me, I presume?"

No.

"Yes."

God _damn,_ you have no shame.

He giggles. "Oh, darling." He drags the hand that was previously resting on the back of the armchair down your chest and you shiver, leaning into him. "I thought as much, otherwise you probably wouldn't have agreed to this. You're still down for it, right, my lovely?"

"Y-yeah," you say, a little breathlessly. You'd really hate to make him think he'd forced or manipulated you into anything. He hasn't, and that's a good thing.

A lot of thoughts run through your head, but they're interrupted by his silky smooth voice. "Good. This is what you've always dreamt of, right? Getting so intimate with me. Getting to finally find out what this heart does. Don't think I didn't see your curiosity showing; you had no idea how to handle it and you know it."

For some reason, him putting you down is oddly hot. "Mm."

"Is that an agreement or something else?"

"Both."

He rests a hand on your hips and then slides his hand downwards to catch under your shirt and press against your skin, moving it back up to rest at the bottom of your stomach again. His hands are so warm that it almost makes you sleepy.

 You shift your kneeling position so you don't entirely kill your legs, and you ghost over his crotch area, making him sigh a little. Despite there being nothing there. Uh.

He gives you the little smirk again. "You can take the heart out, you know."

"Wouldn't that kill you?"

He shakes his head. "Ha. No."

You flash your eyebrows as you look down, as if to say ' _well, then, it's not my fault if you end up dead'_. You grip the heart again, this time tugging on it a little to make sure it can actually move and you're not just partaking in some fucked up assisted suicide. It lifts right out of its little belt chamber, but then it won't go any higher and you refuse to move it any more in case you do mess something up.

"Wires, darling. They're both safe to take out."

You rotate your wrist to look at the back, and sure enough, there are two black wires plugged into it. You remove them slowly. He makes little whimpers of pain as you do, and you set them back in the chamber while giving him a sympathetic look. "Sorry."

"It's not like I didn't enjoy it."

"You sound like you know what you're doing."

"For a start, it's my own body. You'd better believe I've messed with every function on here, darling. Second, I don't always have people around to take care of things." So apparently _he_ has no shame in admitting it, either. "You're lucky you caught me at a good time."

The heart almost burns your hands as you cup it, but not enough to hurt. You give it a gentle squeeze, and he sighs. "Ahh, yes. Just like that."

You wonder if the slime is safe to ingest. You casually bring it up to your mouth in a bold display of new-found confidence and drag your tongue flat across it.

It tastes like strawberries and cream lollipops, with that artificial sugar flavour lingering in your mouth. _He_ tastes like strawberries and cream. You honestly didn't know what you were expecting, and that seems about right for him.

In your little sensory exploration experiment, you'd neglected to focus on Mettaton himself, and you find yourself moving your attention to the little sparks crackling from his chest plate and the fans whirring from inside him. His head is back on the armrests, his loose strands of hair falling around him and hanging down in the air.

You suddenly realise that you have no idea what the fuck you're doing.

"This is weird," you say, holding the gooey, now-saliva-covered heart in your hands like you could drop and smash it at any moment.

"You're fucking a robot, sweetheart. It doesn't get much weirder than that."

"No, I know, it's just-" You cut yourself off and plug the wires back into his heart, replacing it into the little chamber as carefully as you could. "I'm sorry. I can't do this."

He lifts his head up to throw you a confused look before bringing both hands to your hips and holding you steady while he repositions himself to sit more upright. "What?"

"I know I said yes, but...it's too weird. I'm not-...look, you're lovely, and this is great fun, but I didn't want to have a one night stand with you. I'm not about that," you say hastily, forcing the words out. You're not lying.

"Oh." He doesn't hide the disappointment in his voice. Or on his face, apparently, because that's the saddest fucking puppy-eyed look you've ever seen him give. "Is it my fault? I know I can be a bit much."

"No! God, no. It's not you. It's me." You stop yourself. This is turning into a breakup speech. "I-I mean, what I mean is that I don't really just want to...y'know, hit it and quit it. You do it often so you're used to it."

"Did you just indirectly call me a slut?"

"Wh- _no?_   Mettaton-"

"I'm teasing you, darling. Carry on," he says, his smile looking all too forced.

"So, yeah. I'm not used to this kinda thing. It's unusual for me to do shit like this outside of a relationship. I get that I should be thankful for the opportunity and everything but it doesn't feel right. I'm sorry."

"Sweetheart, it's fine." He sounds all but fine.

"I just think that maybe we should get to know each other first."

Why did you say that? Why? You know you mean nothing to him, right? You're just another fan, caught at the right time, right place, and you should just take what you can get. Thousands of people would kill to be where you are. Why aren't you just sucking it up (figuratively, but you could try) and going along with it?

He lets out a low laugh that sounds something like a hum, and you shift off him, nearly tripping on the carpet as you stand. He stays with his legs over the armrest while he talks and you sort yourself out. "With all due respect, darling, I'm not really the kind of person to do that. I'm built to entertain. I have very few emotional connections to people, and those that I do have are either people I would consider a family figure or close friends of them. So logic should tell you that I don't tend to make special exceptions for fans. While I love all of them, I'm not attached to any of them. That being s-"

You fix your hair and shirt in his hall mirror, ready to make your awkward quick escape from the door. "Mettaton, I'm sorry, it just slipped ou-"

" _That being said,_ " he repeats, and you hate that you find the sudden dark tone of his voice attractive. You figure it's best to listen, "you really need to check your receipts more often, darling."

...What?

"Just a quick tip from my time in catering. I did own my own resort once, you know!" He looks at you once you finish ruffling your hair up and smiles the same soft, gentle one that appeared when you laughed. "You look gorgeous. Apologise to your boss for the hold up. Name-drop me and I'm sure they'll understand."

You nod, checking that you still had his cash and receipt in your jacket pocket, and opened the unlocked door, leaving as fast as you could without so much as a goodbye.

 

\---

 

"What took _you_ so long?" your coworker asks as you return dishevelled and upset.

"Traffic," you lie. She glances out of the window at the completely empty roads.

"...Right." You can see her look you up and down and take in your expression, and she stops you from stepping behind the counter. "Hey. Your shift ended ten minutes ago. Go home, get some sleep. You look rough."

For once, you take her advice.

 

\---

 

Four days, _four whole days later_ , you realise why Mettaton looked so pissed when you crumpled up his first receipt, and why he gave you that 'tip' when you dipped out on the sex.

Of fucking course he wrote his number in the signature box.

It could be his business number, though, like the one he has for inquiries on his business cards. Maybe he has a PR or something managing his calls and you could drop a hint to them to pass you along the line. One thing you most definitely will not do is booty call this number, just in case he does have some assistant listening in.

You're brought out of your trance by a customer clicking her fingers in front of your face. "Hello? Can I get any service around here?"

You look her in the eyes with the same deadpan expression you had on before. "Yeah, sorry. Can I help you?"

"I've been wanting you to help me for the past minute," she scoffs. "One pepperoni pizza, large, please."

You recite the order to your coworker as you ring up the total. "Great. That'll be $8.69." You suddenly don't care how unhappy with your job you look, and you think she's already cottoned onto this, because she tuts as she digs in her purse.

"Overpriced junk is what it is."

You so badly want to tip all the coins in her purse onto the floor and say _'you're the one ordering it'_ but apparently you're not allowed to complain about your minimum wage job because 'other people have it worse', say your friends.

There's an awkward few minutes of standing around and avoiding eye contact while the pizza is made, and the woman keeps checking her watch and tutting at nothing. The little clicks occasionally coming from her tightly pressed lips are pissing you off.

Are you just tetchy because you didn't fuck the robot?

Maybe?

...Maybe.

Your coworker deals with the customer for you, exchanging the money and the food with a sugary sweet (forced) smile. As the woman leaves, she rests one elbow against the counter and looks you in the eyes. "Are you sure you're alright? You haven't been looking good these past few days."

"I'm fine," you say. It's a half-truth, at least. You're doing better now that you've found out that Mettaton at least _wants_ to try and contact you, but you also kind of regret what happened the last time you went to deliver his pizza.

"Somehow, I don't believe you, but..." She rests her other hand on your shoulder. "I'll believe you for the sake of not arguing."

When no other customers come in, and she heads to one of the little booths for her 15-minute Facebook break, you stay behind the counter and add Mettaton's (supposedly real) number to your phone, putting him under his own contact. You're really hoping it's not just some elaborate prank. While he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to do that, he also...does, in a way, and it makes you nervous.

You reword your text twelve times before sending it.

 

 **[You:** hey. **]**

 

Yet that's still all you could bring yourself to send. Fucking loser. You wouldn't be surprised if he just gave up now.

The next few minutes are spent with your phone on the metal counter and your arms folded across your chest while you wait anxiously for a response. The number of Diet Cokes in the fridge is forty-seven, and the number of regular Cokes is twenty. There are also eight Sprites. Seven pints of Ben & Jerry's in the freezer. A missing bulb or two in the 'special offer' sign on the wall across from you.

Your phone buzzes, startling you and breaking you from finding any more distractions. The hard case against the harder counter makes such a loud noise that even your coworker looks around to see what it is.

You hold up your phone, a little flustered. "Text!"

She rolls her eyes with a smile and returns to her own. One new message lights up your lock screen.

 

 **[Mettaton:** Oh, darling, I was getting worried that you wouldn't text me. I'll remember to tell you things directly in the future, and not in hint form. **]**

 

 _'The future'_. Oh, fuck, he's implying that you guys are going to keep talking. You type out a weak reply.

 

 **[You:** sorry, i'm just not used to people leaving their numbers on receipts. you're lucky i didn't throw it out! **]**

 **[You:** no hard feelings about the other day, right? i still feel kinda bad about it. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** No, none. None at all. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** In fact, it kind of spurred me to do something else about the situation. **]**

 

This was it. Your number was going to be posted to his Facebook page and he was going to tell people to send you hate and unwarranted dick pics. You were going to be invited to (read: forced to come to) his talk show so he could trash talk you to everyone, so they'd know you as the only person in the world to turn down sex with TV's hottest robot. You were going to-

 

 **[Mettaton:** I'd like to ask you on a date. **]**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh, i promise to continue this and have it go somewhere
> 
> basically i just like the idea that mtt is so used to having fans only use him for sex that he......forgets to have emotional connections? and when people want that instead, he just doesn't know what to do?? so hopefully i can turn this into developing that idea
> 
> (that sorta sounds like i'm being shady to anyone writing mtt/reader pwp like omg i'm not i swear i'm as much of a Filthy Robot Fucker as the rest of you i love those fics, i just want some cuddly metta tho)
> 
> tumblr: polarise.co.vu


	3. surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on how you look at it), mettaton needs dating advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dialogue-heavy chapter coming up! there are only so many actions you can describe when two people are sitting down

You thought you might go to a coffee shop or something for your 'first date', since that's a pretty typical location for one. It's not too loud, there's a nice atmosphere...but no. Mettaton was taking you to a bar. A high-class bar, in all fairness, one that matched his standards to a T. You hadn't been there personally but you'd heard good reviews of it from friends and honestly, you feel quite honoured that he wants to go all out for this little tester date.

You stand, admiring your outfit in your mirror. A tug here, a smoothen there. Perfect. Your hair was styled...near perfectly. Not quite perfect, but you had a feeling it would be getting messed up anyway, through just general head movements or maybe kissing or something, but you didn't think that, and you're not thinking of it now.

You don't really have feelings for this robot, but on the other hand, you think you might. You pretend they aren't there.

 

\---

 

He said 8.30PM. It's 8.31 and he's not here. It shouldn't bother you at all, since it's literally just a minute and you need to learn to stop being so damn paranoid, but you still can't shake the idea that it's just a big set-up. If the text the other day while at your job wasn't enough, then this was the final straw.

8.32. Is it rude to order drinks before your date gets here- nevermind.

You see him through the glass front of the bar, approaching the entrance from a hot pink limousine. You see him follow the revolving door around. And around, and around. Is he stuck? Does he need help?

He eventually finds his way out after a total of five continuous loops, keeping up his strut like the whole bar didn't just see him walk through the revolving door with as much oblivion as he has towards wearing sunglasses indoors. He doesn't remove them as he looks around for you. You'd be lying if you said you didn't make a passive attempt to hide your face as he looked.

"Darling!" he calls, strutting over to you with outstretched arms. You realise you never told him your name, and he envelops you in a big hug with a kiss on each cheek before looking you up and down from your perch on the bar stool. "We're looking _gorgeous_ tonight. Such a change from your work uniform, although I guess that much is obvious."

He snickers behind a gloved hand. You half-giggle, half-cough. You hope he can't tell.

He doesn't seem to, because he takes a seat on the stool opposite you, propping his handbag on the counter and flicking his fringe as if it makes much difference (spoilers: it doesn't. It just falls back down in front of his eye in exactly the same position as before). "So how are you?"

"About the same as usual," you reply. "Boring job, cold apartment, not much of a social life."

"Oh, dear. Well, one night away from that can help, right?"

You smile at his sincerity in wanting to make you feel better. "Yeah."

"Good! So, let's start with the basics: name? Age? Favourite colour? Favourite food?"

You just look at him, and his face is completely serious. You'd be able to tell if he was joking. "Is this like a...like a personality quiz or something?"

"...What do you mean, sweetheart?"

"Just that it sounds more like a list rather than natural conversation," you say with a sympathetic little smile.

"Isn't that the sort of stuff you're supposed to ask about on a first date?"

"Yes, but during a conversation. Not just all at once. We'll get to the answers, I promise, just make it sound a little less robotic."

You wince. He smirks.

"Darling, 'robotic' is about as much as I can do. I'll take your advice on board, though."

He presses his lips together and looks behind the bar solemnly, and you can see that he's...actually pretty nervous? You wonder how much of the pet names and long words make up a fabulous facade. You know celebrities are different onstage to off, obviously, but seeing as he's a robot, you wouldn't think he'd have the same kind of reasons to be like that.

You take a moment to look at what he's wearing. The usual shoulder spikes are gone again, and on his upper half is a light pink loose cropped shirt while his legs are covered with what look like black denim jeggings. They look surprisingly nice on him, especially paired with the pink ankle boots he has on. If he wasn't Mettaton, and Mettaton not so glamorous, he would look remotely like a hooker. But he doesn't. He pulls the outfit off well, although you have to wonder if he got cold outside in nothing but a crop top. 

He suddenly looks back to you with a smile that's not quite forced but not quite sincere. "So, my lovely, what can I get you to drink?" You're about to answer, but he cuts you off. "Ah, before you say anything, can I recommend my favourite?"

"You can."

He waves the bartender down, a slender, bearded, dark-skinned guy who you'd probably also want to go on a date with if you weren't already out with Mettaton. Hey, nobody said you weren't allowed to admire anyone else. Mettaton sure does.

"Two 'Blood and Glitter's, please," he asks.

"Do I want to know?"

He taps your nose. "You'll find out soon enough."

The bartender makes this 'Blood and Glitter' right in front of you, in two martini glasses. You can't tell what drinks he mixes, but you know it's definitely alcohol, and definitely sweet, because you can smell how strong it is. Some pink fluid is added (you force yourself not to blush) and then whipped cream is sprayed over the top.

And then, the finishing touch - a sprinkle of hot pink glitter over both of them. You presume it's the edible stuff.

"Well?" Mettaton says expectantly as it's handed to you. "It's my own brand-sponsored drink. Looks gorgeous, right?"

"It does," you confess. "Does it taste as good as it looks, though?"

"You could ask the same about me, and thus my answer is _'you'll find out'._ " You roll your eyes, and take a sip, sucking up some of the cream along with the reddish-pink drink itself. It's  _very_ sweet, and tastes like strawberries.

Did he...try to replicate his own taste in a cocktail? He did a good job of it, just missing the slight metallic tinge, but anyone who _hadn't_ slept with him wouldn't know that.

He winks when you swallow and look back at him. "Familiar?"

"While, yes, it is lovely, you can  _get fucked_ for that particular comment."

"Darling, I tried." He doesn't quite get the last bit of 'tried' out, with it instead being replaced with a laugh that's unlike his usual showy chuckles. It's a soft giggle that turns into a slightly louder giggle with a hand up in an attempt to cover his mouth. His laugh is infectious, and it makes you start laughing too until both of you are in hysterics at the reference to his possibly only failed seduction attempt.

 His eyes meet yours for a brief second while you compose yourselves, and you manage to take another sip of your drink without spluttering it all out. "Seriously, no hard feelings about the other night? Please say you weren't insulted."

"I wouldn't hold any negative feelings against anyone because they wouldn't have sex with me. That's- that's pretty low, don't you think?"

"Oh, shit, I didn't mean that you were like that, I just-"

"Hey, hey. I know you didn't. I'm only pointing it out. But honey, if I held any negative feelings towards _you,_ you'd know about it. For a start, we wouldn't be on a date."

"Uh...'for a _start'?"_

He props his elbow on the counter and rests his chin on the back of his knuckles, batting his eyelashes. "I'm not going to finish that sentence for the sake of keeping you on this date."

"Sounds like someone _really_ wants to date me," you tease.

"I...have no comeback to that," he confesses with a little breathy laugh. "I do! I'm interested in forming emotional connections from this point on. I'm starting with you."

There it is. 'Starting with'. You're just the first of many. This date doesn't mean anything. Did you _want_ it to mean something? You don't know anymore.

He taps your nose again with the hand resting on his knee. "Sweetheart? You're spacing out a little."

"Oh. Sorry. Um, emotional connections? This sounds deep."

"Yes. I don't have a lot of them. I'm only close to-" He cuts himself off to pause and count on his fingers. "-three people."

"Only three?"

"Mhm. There's Alphys, who built my bodies. I owe her so much, and I see her as a sort-of older sister figure. Or younger sister, depending on the situation. Then there's Papyrus. Skeleton. Brother of Sans? I'm sure you've heard of Sans."

The name whirls around your head. You've heard it in passing, but you still have no idea who he is. You tell him this.

"Ah. Well, I'm not on best terms with him, I'll tell you that much. Either way, his brother likes me, and I like his brother, so we can handle being around each other for the sake of his happiness."

"That's sweet."

"I know. And finally, my cousin. A little ghost named Napstablook."

"Cousin? Ghost? Hate to be the one to break it to you, but..." you gesture to all of him, "...metal."

He gives a laugh. It sounds kind of sad. Whoops. "They're wonderful, honestly. Believe it or not, I used to be a ghost, too. I wasn't always this gorgeous, fabulous hunk of titanium."

You lean closer, legitimately interested. "Really? Wow. I didn't expect that."

"Of course you didn't."

"Are you doubting my intelligence, metal man?"

"Did those two long words hurt your brain to say, my lovely?"

You grin. He smirks and winks, and then takes a sip of his drink. Can he even do that? "Before you ask, yes, I have a stomach. It's just kind of...basic. A literal tube down past all my vital systems and wires to a little box somewhere down there. I empty it every so often. It's arguably a simpler version of human anatomy."

You pause to think. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Both of you take more sips of the cocktail. It's actually really nice once you get into it, but whatever strong alcohol they're using in it is making your mouth colder whenever breath passes through it. It should be obvious that you don't drink much, so you sip warily, worried about your alcohol tolerance level. You don't want to make a scene on a date with _the_ Mettaton.

"There is, however, a small filter for the ethanol to pass through, which then gets carried up here-" He points to his head, "-where all my, quotation marks, 'neurotransmitters' are stored. It's a huge jumble of wires, I won't lie to you, but it sounds better to say. This means that _this_ little beauty is just enough to get me tipsy."

Fortunately for you, this doesn't seem like it'll be a problem.

 

\---

 

Mettaton is a loud drunk. His smirk is constantly plastered to his face, and he becomes less reserved and formal and more touchy. His hand rests on your knee, and when it's not, it's messing with a loose strand of your hair or clasped over yours where it rests on the counter. His eyes, while they're pretty much half-lidded all the time anyway, seem to look more dazed, and he blinks more.

And he also gets increasingly close to your face.

The music had picked up in the bar. It was a nice place, but it was getting late, and the people who were still here had moved to harder drinks with the intent of getting wasted and dancing, probably. Including you. Neon lights in purple and teal light up the ceiling and some of the walkways on the floor, for ease of use since the lights had been turned down. You find it quite cute that Mettaton's eyes literally light up, along with his heart emitting a soft glow. You're not sure if they're normal reactions or due to the ethanol in his system, but it's aesthetically pleasing regardless.

"So tell me, darling." He puts a hand on your shoulder while the other toys with his fourth empty glass, dangerously spinning it around on the circular base. His handiwork is impressive to watch. You don't doubt that he's not going to smash the glass. Watching his fingers move smoothly and almost repetitively is...not turning you on. At all. No.

"Mm?"

He waits, expecting something, then only speaks when it's clear you aren't going to. "Tell me your life story, of course!"

"You didn't make that obvious just from 'tell me'."

"Hush your pretty little mouth. Life story. Go."

You pause. "Born. Grew up. Education. Living alone, boring pizza job. The end thus far."

"You're fucking awful at stories, sweetheart." You flash an eyebrow at his language, smiling. "But it's okay. I'll teach you how to tell good ones."

He gives you a wide grin, almost comically wide, baring all his teeth at you. You notice he has little fangs where the canines should be.

"Are those sharp?" you ask absentmindedly.

"What?"

"Your teeth, I mean. You have little fangs or something. Like animal or vampire teeth. Why?"

"Because...I can? I don't know, darling. Alphys put them in. She watches some...odd stuff. Probably took inspiration from that." He shrugs. "And yes, they're very sharp. Do you need a demonstration?"

Yes. "No."

"Are you sure?"

 _Please give me a demonstration._ "Yes."

"If you're sure, then I can't argue with that, my lovely." He tilts his head backwards and closes his eyes, then opens them again to look down his nose at you. Then he closes them again and shakes his head. "What am I saying, I told myself that I'm not going to let myself-...let myself get all sexy." You try not to laugh. "This is supposed to be a-a nice evening and now I'm drink- _drunk,_ and too flirty because I'm nervous and Alphys said to show you the real me, whoever _that_ is, a-and-" He hiccups, and doesn't finish his sentence.

You find it really sweet that Alphys told him to show you who he really is, even if he doesn't know himself. That means he talked to Alphys before the date, and that's really cute. And he's nervous? He's not the only one.

"Tell me how to be good on dates, sweetheart."

"Mett, I'm- wait, can I call you Mett?"

"You can call me yours."

Ignoring him, you carry on. "Mett, _I'm_ not even good at dates. I'm actually kind of thankful that you're drunk because there's less pressure on me to impress you."

"You are good at dates though, darling. I don't feel things in the way that humans do. I know that I like you, but how? In what way? That's why we're on a date, isn't it? You're good at the nice, friendly conversation stuff and I'm good at the seduction part. That way..." He moves his two hands up and down like he's balancing an invisible scale with them, then smushes them together. "...we make a whole!"

You smile. "Alright, but you're not seducing me tonight or any other night."

"I already diiiiid and you stopped me, my lovely."

"Because I didn't want to do it. Because I felt like I was just taking the opportunity while it was there. Like so many other people would kill to be where I was."

"They would."

"Yeah. And that aside, it's just not very _me_ to do that. That's why I agreed to a date."

"That _exact_ way of thinking is why I asked you on a date in the first place. I can fuck all the fans I want but I won't ever have a relationship with them." A downer. "Except you, maybe. But only time will tell." Slightly better. "Anyway, what I mean is that I know I have a reputation as...easy. But that's just how I'm programmed. It's a persona. An act." His hands wave in front of your face on 'act', his fingers wiggling like he's about to perform a magic trick.

"So who's the _real_ you?"

There's a long silence. He chews on his lip, drums his fingers on the counter, twirls his hair, clicks his tongue, anything that could stall time while he words his answer. In hindsight, you probably weren't supposed to notice all of those little responses, but they're endearing enough that you do anyway.

"A robot who takes too long to boot up in the morning, pretends any problems that I have aren't there, gets annoyed over minuscule things. Sometimes I can't walk in my own heels. Sometimes I only leave my fringe down because I can't do my eyeliner right. And most of the time, when I'm not live or on the air, I get very, very lonely, sweetheart. There. Now you can agree to decline my second date offer."

"Mettaton, you understand that humans aren't perfect every minute of every day? That means you don't have to be, either. People won't care if your voice glitches or if your eyeshadow doesn't blend well, because you have a great personality and you're _you,_ " you say. You think you just filled your daily quota of motivational speeches. "And nobody said anything about a second date, but if you want me to teach you how to date people, then I accept."

He gives you a happy little smile, one that looks full of hope and not at all dissimilar to the one he gave you back at his place when you laughed, and when he said you looked nice. "...Really?"

"Really, Mett. We're gonna fucking have this second date, alright? We're gonna date it up. We're gonna date if it kills us," you laugh. You've only had two glasses of Blood and Glitter, and you thought you were tougher than this but it seems like the alcohol is starting to take its toll on your system. "And I'm gonna teach you how to handle relationships. Even if I'm pretty awful at them myself, and even if it's only fake dating. But we'll make it work, and we can only go up from here, right? Yeah."

Mettaton looks down, and then gives you another small toothy grin. "You're wonderful. I knew there was a reason I liked you!"

And then he leans forward and kisses you right on the lips.

And you end up kissing him back.

And suddenly you're not so sure if fake-dating is all you want to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so listen. fake dating. you and mett fake dating because mettaton can't handle Proper Emotional Relationships and he needs help with it. just hear me out on this one because i promise you'll like it, the outcome is so predictable that you've guessed it already as soon as i said 'fake dating' but let's roll with it


	4. "'i'm fine', my gorgeous little ass"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tension between mettaton and reader, and not necessarily the good kind
> 
> that being said..............(fake-)DATING START!!!

You had kissed him back, drunkenly, and the thought of it still floats around your head. Did you think you'd be able to push it to the back of your mind? No. Did you try to? Yes.

But while you huddle up on the sofa with four blankets and a mug of hot chocolate, you can't forget about how the cocktail tasted on his lips when he pressed them against yours.

 

\---

 

 **[Mettaton:** I have to apologise about what happened last night. It was uncalled for, and I was drunk. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** That doesn't excuse it, but you know. **]**

 **[You:** mett, i kissed you back. it's fine. **]**

 **[You:** better than fine. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Not when I mention the next part. **]**

 

Your heart sank. You weren't even dating and you already felt a breakup speech coming on. Part of you wants to hide your phone for the rest of the night until you work up the confidence to open the next message, but the rest of you (which conveniently contains the actual common sense) wills you to keep the phone unlocked while the little 'typing' bubble hovers ominously above the keyboard.

 

 **[Mettaton:** I'd love to date you, sweetheart. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** But I don't want you to be the first human that I have a romantic relationship with. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** You're thinking 'why', right? **]**

 

Yes. You don't want to ask anything because you get the feeling he's continuing regardless of what you say.

 

 **[Mettaton:** It's simple. I don't want to mess it up. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** I want you to help me with dating, like you said you would. And that's not me asking, by the way. It's a statement. You promised, darling! **]**

 **[Mettaton:** And I'm sure you're aware of what happens to people who disagree with me. **]**

 

You stare at the phone in shock. Is he...threatening you? What the fuck?

For a moment your mind flashes back to what you've been told about abusive relationships. _Put a frog in hot water, it'll jump straight out. Put a frog in cold water and gradually increase the temperature, it'll stay there until it dies._

Alright, stop now. You're getting worked up over nothing. He wouldn't. He apologised for _kissing_ you, for fuck's sake.

 

 **[Mettaton:** I'm joking, of course. You're too cute to hurt. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Unless you're into that. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** ;) **]**

 **[You:** maybe someday you'll find out. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Naturally, I'll have to return the favour at some point. **]**

 **[You:** for what? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Are we forgetting what events led to this conversation happening in the first place? **]**

 

Oh. Right. You nearly had sex.

 

 **[Mettaton:** Anyway, I don't want to enter into a relationship with you with little to no knowledge of how to date properly and end up messing something up. So I'm going to try and date someone else, but I want you to be a darling and help me out. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** And you can help me out by fake-dating me! **]**

 **[Mettaton:** That means I still get to go on a date with you but I'll just be picking up on little things that make the date good. Sound alright? **]**

 **[You:** you're assuming that the date is going to be good. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Oh, but if it's with you, it's going to be good no matter what happens. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Make yourself free Wednesday night. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** I'll pick you up from work. You get off at 11, right? **]**

 **[You:** yeah. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** I'll be there to get you. **]**

 

\---

 

The rest of the week goes by slowly. Too slowly. You don't hear from Mettaton at all, although it's not like you try to contact him, either. You hope he doesn't think lesser of you because of this - you're just not the best with remembering to text people.

You have him on your mind all day, every day, though, and you found yourself heading to his apartment block instinctively on a delivery run and having to speed up and make a quick redirection to the actual address before they noticed and your time window ran out. Luckily, you succeeded, even if you did cut off a learner driver and breeze through a red light in the process.

You still don't forget about the kiss.

 

\---

 

 The whole experience of being picked up from your job and whisked away to some mysterious late-night date location is awkward, to say the least, and not nearly as romantic as Mettaton probably hoped it would be. You had to tidy up your area, since you were working the ovens tonight, change your shirt in the toilets, and explain to your coworker exactly why there's a hot pink Lamborghini waiting on the curb outside.

"That's one flashy fucker," she comments coolly, glancing at you as you pull your apron off and replace it with your coat.

"My ride," you smile.

"No way. If you're rich enough to have a Lambo _and_ chauffeur, why the hell are you working here?" You tap your nose after pulling on a beanie to hide your terrible hairnet head. She gets it. "Kid, why didn't you tell me you were going on a date? I could've given you advice."

You don't tell her that the whole point of this date was to give someone _else_ dating advice. "Who said I needed your advice?"

"Touche. One tip: no sex on the first date."

You also don't tell her that you came close to that before even dating him. "Who said this was our first date?"

She just grins as you wave goodbye and step outside, being hit with the harsh cold of winter before opening the door of Mettaton's car, and then the wave of heat hits you like a bullet. He finishes typing something on his phone before looking at you.

"Darling, what on earth took you so long?"

"Cleaning up."

"I've been here for so long."

"Five minutes. Five minutes, Mettaton," you say, clambering into the seat and fastening your seatbelt. You do not trust Mettaton's driving skills. "Couldn't you have just changed into your box form and wheeled me off into the sunset?"

"Ha, ha. Very funny," he deadpans, starting up the engine again and pulling away. "If I had, I wouldn't be able to wear this gorgeous outfit, now, would I?"

 You look over to be the judge of whether his outfit is worth it. (Of course it is, but you look out of both courtesy and curiosity.) He's wearing a pale pink knitted sweater with a chunky, draping neckline that hangs off one shoulder and batwings extending from the bottom hem to the rolled-up sleeves. You think you spot a couple of badges, but you can't get close enough to read them. Said sweater ends at his waist (what is it with this guy and cropped shirts?) and your eyes continue downwards to a pair of hot pink denim shorts. Little strings of thread hang from the distressed leg hems. You can't see his shoes due to them being on the pedals, but since you can't see tight plastic against his calves you assume he's wearing something different to the usual fuchsia boots that you're accustomed to.

"You're taking an awfully long time staring me down, darling. I don't blame you."

"I'm assessing your assets."

"My incredibly tight shorts are telling me that you used the perfect amount of a particular three-letter word in that sentence."

"...Anyway," you start, trying and failing not to picture it. He smirks, "would you legally be able to use your box form as a vehicle on a road? Just curious."

He chews his lip. His lipstick still remains flawless. "I suppose the human equivalent of that would be asking if someone can use their wheelchair on the highway...? So, no. Nice try, though."

"You have a point. I figured it'd be fun to ride on the top of you though," you say without thinking. He chuckles, and you inwardly curse your fucking terrible wording.

"Oh, sweetheart, you could ride me anywhere with that face of yours." You can feel yourself blushing. "But no, that'd be dangerous for both of us. And I wouldn't dare put you in danger."

You don't respond, and instead choose to look over at him again, this time looking at how the curls in his hair flick perfectly upwards and frame his face. It looks so fluffy, and you're lowkey jealous that a robot with synthetic fibers still manages to have better hair than you.

He keeps his eyes focused on the road, then turns to you at a red light. "...What? Is there a problem?"

"Oh, no, sorry," you say, peeling your eyes away from his before the vivid pinkness of them draws you in and you end up distracting him from driving. "Lost in thought."

"What were you thinking about?"

"About how jealous I am of your hair. It looks so fluffy! I'm quite jealous."

"Why, thank you, lovely. It does look nice tonight, I have to admit. I used a little bit of extra styling gel and it worked wonders." He smiles at you and you smiles back quickly. "Meanwhile, you're hiding your gorgeous locks with a hat. Why?"

"Because working in a heated environment with a hairnet on gives you the world's worst hair. I have to wash it practically every night."

"Oh. Well, that beanie does look adorable on you, anyway!"

You can't force the happy little grin off your face. You probably look stupid, smiling down at your lap, but even the smallest of compliments from Mettaton manages to get to you. He notices this, too.

"Look at your cute little smile," he says, and it doesn't sound condescending in the least, "on those cute little lips. You know where they'd look even cuter, though, my lovely? Against mine." You make a vaguely strangled _'hhhhhhhhhhhhh'_ sound in response, and he laughs. "I speak from experience, of course."

So now you were treading on uneven ground. Everything after the kiss had gone smoothly, and you two had just laughed after it happened. You were, after all, drunk, and even though he had apologised for it, you got the impression that he wasn't sorry at all and that he enjoyed it as much as you did.

You aren't quite sure what to say in response. It's a compliment, obviously, but he's also flirting and you don't want to become a blushing mess right next to him. So, naturally, you reply with the only thing your mind can think of.

"Kiss me again, then, you loser."

He shifts gear without taking his eyes off the road, but his face cracks a slightly wider smile. He's driving. He can't. Why the fuck did you say that? "When we pull up, I will, darling."

"Oh, okay."

"Just an 'oh, okay'?"

"I mean, I wasn't expecting it. I said it to sound cliche, like the ending of a chapter of a novel or something. It wasn't literal."

"Are you inferring that you don't want it?"

"God, no."

"I knew it."

The next few minutes of the ride are spent in silence, but they're far from awkward. In fact, you quite like the comfortable quietness of the car - the only sounds are the low hum of the engine and the buzz of the radio playing faintly, the song unrecognisable. This part of the city is slightly brighter, and the streets are still crowded with people even at this time. People out for drinks and parties, you assume. Neon signs of shops and restaurants blur past your eyes as the car purrs down the road, finally coming to a slow and then turning into a parking lot. You recognise it as belonging to the Starbucks just around the corner.

"You're taking me to a coffee shop for this date," you say jokingly, "and _I'm_ the one acting to cliches?"

He takes the key out and picks his bag up, still smiling. "We're just getting coffee to go. Or hot chocolate, or tea, or a smoothie - whatever you want, sweetheart. I have somewhere nicer we can go."

You don't come to this area very often, the simple reason being that you never really had a reason to - why go out by yourself when there's a convenience store on the corner for groceries and your laptop enticing you to your bed with Netflix and social media sites? You imagine it'd look cute at Christmas, with lights decorating the signposts and snow falling from the air.

Now that you're both out of the car, you can see Mettaton's shoes: hot pink ankle boots with a folded-over top. How does he coordinate his outfits so well? Black and pink was a colour combination that you wore when you were twelve and trying too hard to be a scene kid, yet he manages to make it look effortlessly stylish no matter what he wears.

Starbucks is literally right around the corner from the parking lot, so you make it there before you even have a chance to strike up a conversation. Mettaton holds the door open for you and you barely even step into the warmth before you hear a squeal.

Oh, yeah. You almost forgot Mettaton was an international celebrity. _Thankfully,_ the girl tottering past reminds you of that fact.

"You're the actual Mettaton, right?" she asks hopefully, looking up at him with adoring eyes. He's somewhat shorter than normal without the platforms on his usual boots, but he still has to crouch to meet her at eye level when he clicks his tongue and winks.

"That I am, my darling," he says, putting on the same sultry tone that you'd only heard when he was trying to get you to sleep with him, and you desperately hope that he's not going to abandon this date in favour of a new proposition.

 "Oh my god," she mumbles, grinning. "I'm sorry, I'm just such a big fan, I- could I, um, get an autograph, please?"

"I'm a little busy right now," he says, glancing up at you. The dejected look on her face is almost painful, "but I'll make an exception for you, my lovely."

"T-thank you! So much!" she says, patting down her pockets in a panic. "I have a little...notebook in my bag. I'm sorry, can you just hold on while I get it?" She returns to her table before waiting for an answer, and Mettaton stays crouched down but maintains eye contact with you.

"Sorry," he mouths, and the girl comes back before you can answer. She thrusts the purple notebook and a pen towards him, and he smiles graciously as he takes it from her and flips to a random page to sign it. You'd rather have him be nice to fans than act like an asshole to them. That'd be a massive turn-off, because then what happens when he gets bored of you? When you're no longer fun to talk to and fake-date?

He draws a little bust shot of himself on the page, too, and the girl looks like she's about to burst with energy. His drawing skills are of a surprisingly good standard, and you remember reading the (albeit rather reluctant) interview with the monster scientist who made him, and she turned out to be an anime nut with a knack for drawing fanart, so you wouldn't be surprised if she programmed some of her skills into Mettaton, too.

He hands the book and pen back to the girl with a nod. "There you go, darling. Don't forget, my show's on MTTTV in an hour! Late-night talk show special. I'm not live, obviously, but seeing me now is just as good as, if not better," he says with a wink.

"I was actually j-just finishing up so I could catch it," she stammers, her face turning a rosy shade of red at the wink.

 "That's what I like to hear! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some important business to attend to with my companion there." He gestures forward to you, and you give the girl an awkward pursed-lip smile.

"Oh! I'm sorry for keeping you two," she says, smiling at you. "I hope you guys have a good night." She slinks back to her table to clear her stuff up, and you're _so very fucking thankful_ that she wasn't one of the rabid fans that Mettaton tells tales about in interviews. 

 He returns to your side as you stride to the counter. "So what are you having?"

You pause to read the menu, like you haven't seen it a thousand times before. "A hot chocolate, I think. It's pretty cold out, so."

"So...?"

"Uh, that was the end of the sentence."

"You don't end a sentence with 'so', my dear."

" _I_ do."

"It's not grammatically correct."

"Shush. What are you getting?"

"My usual," he says nonchalantly, as if everyone knows what his usual Starbucks order is. You wonder for a second if he has another brand-sponsored drink here, too. "The caramel cream one, of course."

"Oh, I love that! Too cold for it right now, though," you say, and he smiles before giving your orders to the elderly barista, who looks like she's never seen Mettaton before in her life. Doesn't act like it, anyway. She asks for the names on the cups.

"Mett. M-E-T-T," he spells out, and she turns to you. You tell her your name and she scribbles it on the other cup, and you don't pretend not to notice Mettaton's arm around your waist as he guides you to the collection counter. Instead, you move as close to him as you can.

 

\---

 

Once you'd collected your drinks, you took a walk down the brightly-lit streets, Mettaton supposedly following a route he already knew. To where, though, you have no idea. You could very well be walking around until fucking shit o'clock in the morning and Mett would still be insisting that he knows where he's going.

"It's down the end of this street," he says as you take the umpteenth turn of the night. More neon signs and twinkling streetlights greet your eyes, not looking at all unlike the last however-many winding roads you'd passed through. He'd had his arm around you since you left Starbucks, and instead of stopping for fans (or anyone who looked in shock at the sight of him, which could even be people who don't know who he is, given that those shorts do his legs justice like nothing on this earth), he just gave a dismissive wave and a smile. It was enough to get the message across to people that he was too busy to stop for photos or autographs. He offers you a final sip of his drink before throwing the empty plastic cup away, and you're surprised that someone doesn't immediately fish it out of the trash and list it on eBay.

Mettaton starts telling a story about the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to him live on air - a tiny wardrobe malfunction, apparently, which doesn't sound like the most devastating thing in the world - but you're only half-listening. The crowd seems to have picked up around this end.

You eventually reach the end of the street (and the end of the story), and now you see why. The entrance to a park lies before you, with fairy lights twisted around tree trunks and couples walking around no differently to how they would in the daytime. It already has a relaxed atmosphere and you're not even in there yet.

"It's so pretty," you say.

"I know, darling! That's why I brought you here. It's a nice place for a date, right?"

"Yeah. Perfect, in fact."

Mettaton seems to glow with confidence. "So I got one part of this dating thing right?"

You forgot that this was a pre-date, to prepare him for a date with someone else unknown. You kind of went along with lying to yourself that it was an actual date until he said that. But you won't go back on your word, and you vow to help him. "Yeah!"

"Oh, that's wonderful to hear!" You hadn't even noticed that you had already walked into the park during your talking. "What else is there to work on, my lovely?"

"Well..." You consider what there _could_ be, not wanting to point out specifics in case you offended him. It's hard to think of anything, since your first date with him went perfectly fine, but not everyone would enjoy getting drunk at a bar, you guess. Your fingers tap idly on the side of your takeout cup. "Maybe conversation? That's super fuckin' important. If there's no conversation, you can't- neither one knows what the other is like, which...isn't good."

"Alright. So I shouldn't just start listing things I want to know about them? You seemed to pick up on that last time."

"Yeaaah, no. It seems really insincere. If you start talking about a relevant topic, you can bring it up and ask a question that you want to know the answer to. For example, if you wanted to know what my favourite colour was, and I said, 'hey, I really like the colour of your shoes'...how would you go about working that question in?"

"Uh...I'd say, 'I know, they're gorgeous. I love them too'."

"That's not asking the question, Mett, you're just talking about yourself." You hear the same fans whirr at the use of 'Mett' that you heard when sitting across his hips that one time. "Come on, you're known for being sharp-witted and silver-tongued. You can think of something."

"How about, 'yeah, they're my favourite colour' and then compliment something they're wearing and ask if it's _their_ favourite colour?"

"Good enough!" you say cheerfully. It doesn't matter if he's a little (cough cough) robotic in his dating ways - that's how he's built.

"So tell me that thing about my shoes."

"The first one?"

"If you wouldn't mind, sweet."

"I really love the colour of those boots. They're so...you," you say. It sounds a little fake, but you're being serious.

"I-...yeah, they really are a gorgeous colour. My favourite, in fact," he says before pausing. "That beanie looks really good on you, by the way. Favourite colour of yours?"

"Yeah, actually," you say, flowing into the conversation and glancing up at your beanie, even though you can't really see it. "I got it for my birthday, actually. Present from a friend."

"When was your birthday, darling?"

You tell him, and just as quickly he reels off your star sign. "And I'm an Aquarius," he says.

"Oh, nice. When's your birthday?"

"Valentine's Day. 14th February."

"That's so sweet," you say, and then shake your head in realisation. "See? You just got three things out of me without even trying! Birthday, star sign, favourite colour."

His eyes literally light up. "I did, didn't I? Oh, this is going so well," he says dreamily, pulling your waist closer. Your shoes scuff against the ground as he does. "I told you that you'd be good at this, darling. Thank you ever so much."

You beam up at him, and he has the little loving smile on his face again. You slide your hand into his back pocket, using it both as a good place to rest your hand and an excuse to grab a handful of his ass. He lets out a little yelp at the sudden contact.

"A little frisky, are we?" he says, the loving smile turning into a smirk, and then he pauses. You look at him worriedly, in case he's out of charge or about to reboot, but then he just shakes his head and snaps out of it. "Sorry, darling. A memory came back to me."

"What memory could possibly come back while I'm copping a feel?"

"Just an old friend. It was what I said, not you, don't worry."

"Okay, no problem. I just thought you were going to shut down or something."

"Sweetheart, right now I feel like I could do anything _but_ shut down," he mutters. You shiver, partially because of the chill in the wind and also because of his comment, although you're not sure why you should be shivering at the latter. He picks up on it. "Are you cold, my dear?"

"No, I'm fine."

"'I'm fine', my gorgeous little ass. You're cold, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"We just passed a bench. Let's go back there." You nod in agreement and you both do a little turnaround, heading back towards the park bench while you clutch your hot chocolate in the hopes that it'll keep your hands warm. (You'll admit that the only reason you haven't finished it is because you want to feel the warmth on your hands.) You can only just about see it, because you seem to have walked around the entire length of the park and have now started to enter the more dimly-lit parts. A few random lamps illuminate the grass, and you sit down as soon as you reach the bench. Mettaton pulls you up by a hand.

"No, no, no, darling. Hold on." He then proceeds to just sit down himself, confusing you until he pats his lap.

_"Really?"_

"Are you forgetting how warm my hands are? Come here, I want to show you something."

You somewhat reluctantly sit down on his lap, not wanting to make eye contact, and you're a little scared that you're going to be blindsided by a paparazzi and end up having rumours told about you two to the tabloids. He shuffles himself, and you let out an involuntary sigh at the accidental grinding motion. You suddenly can't feel his front against you.

"Say something cute to me," he commands, and for once you can't think of anything to say about him.

"Uh...fuck, um...your eyes are really cute? And I like how they light up when you're happy. It's really endearing, actually."

His fans whirr to life, and then you feel a burst of warm air against your back. It makes you flinch, but it's also really nice, and then your lower back is heating up, too. He wraps his arms around you, letting his hands rest on your stomach, which are also lovely and warm and now every part of you is warm and it's making you sleepy again.

You feel your eyes flickering until you feel a weight on your shoulder. It's Mettaton's head. "Is that better?"

"Yes. So much better."

"Mmm. I thought so." The warmth at the top of your back starts to fade, and you think you know why. "Say something else."

"Are you just trying to get me to compliment you?"

"Oh, darling, surely you're smart enough to have cottoned on by now? When I get flustered, a lot of excess air builds up that has to be sent out somehow. A couple of those holes in my chest plate are vents, which push out said air. I figured that would warm you up."

"Yeah. I sort of got that far, but it wouldn't surprise me if you were just fishing for compliments," you say with a smirk. He nudges his chin into you as a response. "Ow. Okay, okay. Your legs are fucking gorgeous, especially in shorts."

There's no whirr. 

"Does it have to be cute, then?" you ask, confused.

"I...guess so? I never really looked at it in much depth," he admits rather sheepishly.

"Okay. Then I think your smile is really cute. It, like...makes the rest of your face light up."

The whirring returns along with the heat, and he chuckles and nuzzles your shoulder. "Thank you, sweetie. And also, you're welcome."

His lap is surprisingly comfortable. His legs are thick and softer than you expected, and his arms around you make you feel really safe. You could get used to this.

"Hey, sweetheart," he says after a few moments of silence.

"Yeah?"

"You never got that kiss you asked for in the car, did you?"

"O-oh. No."

"Can I..." He shifts your beanie with what you assume is his nose. "...kiss you someplace other than your lips?"

Oh, fuck. "Please."

He lets out a little hum, and then softly presses his lips to your neck. They feel unfamiliar, yet warm and gentle, and from your throat escapes a small sigh that he seems to appreciate, because you can feel his lips stretch into a smile against your neck.

"There's your kiss," he teases.

"Nobody said it only had to be one kiss."

"Right you are, darling." With that, he kisses again, a little harder, and then you feel a weird sensation as he sucks on your skin. He's leaving a hickey and _you aren't fucking prepared at all for this but it's so good_  and you tilt your head to allow him more room. You feel his arms wrap tighter around you as he mumbles against your skin. "Someone's eager."

 "It's just really nice."

"I won't-" He kisses again suddenly, catching you off-guard and making you gasp too audibly for your liking. "-start anything now. But hey, at least my doing this is keeping my fans on, and therefore keeping you warm."

You remember what he said about not wanting to date you in case he messed his first relationship up. Now you're somewhat worried that said first relationship is going to last longer than you anticipated. If this is the kinda shit he'd be pulling, who could resist? Who would _want_ to break up with him?

You'll admit, you're jealous of this currently non-existent person that Mettaton's going on a date with. The one he's practicing with you for. You can try to pass off your feelings as a little fan crush, like most girls (and guys) across the world have for him. Nothing special, and you can't kid to yourself that you mean anything more to him than your assistance in helping him date someone else. Like he _hasn't_ kissed anyone else's neck before, left hickeys on anyone else before. He's probably gone through every base and hit the home run so hard that it loops around the earth to hit the bowler in the face.

And you had your chance. You had your chance to mean something to him, even if it was just for sex and just for an hour. But now he's simply using you for his own advantage, so that he can date someone else who isn't you-

"Darling? You're...spacing out. Are you alright? Is this too much?"

"No, it's fine, I just...had a thought."

His head is back to resting on your shoulder. "What about?"

"...Do you like me?" you ask suddenly. You stare straight ahead and don't read his face.

"Well, darling, I'm still figuring things out. That's why I've enlisted your help. But I think I do. I already-"

"-told me that you don't want to date me because it's your first relationship? I know."

"You make it sound like I don't want to date you _at all._ And I do. Very much so. I'd date you in a heartbeat, my lovely, but for now we're doing this...fake-dating _thing_ so that I can learn how to _actually_ date. And then, maybe-...no, never mind. Only time will tell."

Time may well tell, but you're unsure how many more repressed feelings you can stand before you start to push him away completely.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha lol this is like 5k words??? i wrote it all in one night can this satisfy you sinners until the next update or nah
> 
> someone brought this up too sooooooo....i can't claim the headcanon that mett's bday is valentine's day is mine and i wrote it in without thinking, even though i knew i'd seen/read it somewhere before - it was originally written into [bookmarks](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5237189/chapters/12079643) (which is so good and you need to read it) and so full credit for that idea goes to [koalolive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Koalolive/)! 
> 
> tumblr (feel free to yell at me or beg for more chapters or express love or whatever i'm all ears): polarise.co.vu


	5. bad time??? ?? ??? naw, it's actually pretty satisfying for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY hey hey. song for the chapter, but mostly the end: [idfc - blackbear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmWBphAf72g)
> 
> also this was supposed to be out two days ago but i added to it and i figured you guys wouldn't mind a little extra wait in exchange for a l l t h e f l u f f
> 
> heart thing inspired by the fact that i spray-painted a microphone hot pink for my mtt cosplay and got my entire left hand completely covered with bright paint
> 
> innuendo

 

 

Mettaton needs to stop ordering fancy pizza at 10 PM, because you're almost getting sick of driving all the way there in the snow, which is getting increasingly heavier by the day. You hope he appreciates it, but knowing him, he probably doesn't.

The doorman gives you a weird look as you come through, and he doesn't even ask for the receipt this time. He's probably already waved you off as 'the fan who got close and now thinks they're dating'. Well, ha ha. Ha. You'll have the last laugh.

It takes Mettaton longer than usual to come to the door, and it opens too rapidly. You look at him. He looks dishevelled: his hair is sticking up at stupid angles, his face looks oddly alert, and he seems...breathless, despite him being a robot. You kind of expect the worst, but you just give him a half smile instead of saying anything.

"H-hello, darling," he says quickly, leaning one arm on the door frame above his head. "I wasn't expecting you this early."

"You ordered a pizza...?"

"I did. You just caught me at a bad time." He stands up straight again, instead of trying to make the oh-so-casual lean work, and scratches the back of his head.

"Did I now?"

"Yes."

"What bad time would that be?" There's a fan in there. You know there is. He's probably got them sprawled on the sofa, ready for whatever filth he can seduce them into taking part in. Got them pining from behind the door while you keep him waiting.

His heart seeps pink goo, the same goo that you had your hands in last week. You swallow.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm sure you don't want me to go into specifics right now."

"Please do," you say. You don't like how demanding you sound. Mostly, you're just trying to stop your eyes from prickling with tears. You don't mean that much to him anyway. Why would it bother you if he's up to his usual antics, seducing and romancing everyone brave enough to stand near him? "If I've interrupted something, I-"

"Darling, the only person you've interrupted is me, myself and I."

Oh.

You force out a smile. He gives you a sheepish grin.

"Well, shit, don't let me stop you," you say, a little more cheerfully.

"Wasn't planning on it." He runs a finger over his heart, picking up some of the slime on the tip of his finger, and holds it in front of him. You respond by pushing the pizza box into his hand as a sign that he should take it.

"Can't spend too long here again. They'll get suspicious."

He takes your free hand and slowly edges it nearer to his heart, watching your face for a reaction. When you don't even blink, he pouts. So, naturally, you decide to mess with him, and inch your hand forward, squeezing the soul. It had the consistency of jelly, yet it didn't fall apart in your hands. It kind of fascinated you, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't impressed.

But maybe you shouldn't focus on that after what you just did. Maybe you should focus on the downright pornographic sounds coming from Mettaton's perfectly pointed lips, the loud whirr of fans to accompany them, the sudden jerky flinches, and the way he literally has to lean his arm on your shoulder to steady himself.

You should focus on _that,_ because it's hot as fuck and you think you might have accidentally just almost given this robot an orgasm.

He's facing the ground, not bringing his eyes up to look at you. You laugh nervously and pull your hand away, and a long string of goo follows with it. You're stopped from wiping it away on your jacket by Mettaton grabbing your wrist. "N-no, darling. Let me cl-cl-clean that up for you."

And then, just as suddenly, your fingers are in his mouth and he's sucking his own fluid off them like it's his job. It's horrifically cliche, and you feel as though your life is headed down the route of 'terrible fanfiction'. He moans a little, while his lips are pressed tightly around your knuckles - he has an impressive gag reflex, and by impressive you mean non-existent - and it makes your whole hand tingle with the minute vibrations. It's a weird feeling, to be touching his tongue with your fingers, but what makes you the most flustered is the way he's staring at you with half-lidded eyes while he does it.

He removes them from your mouth with a satisfying pop, and you feel your face burning up. You're hotter than hot. Hotter than Mettaton. Hottaton. Mettahot. Wow, it suddenly got really hot up here. Did someone turn up the heating? Does Mettaton have his fireplace going? His actual fireplace, though, that wasn't a euphemism.

You can't think straight, and he knows it. He winks at you. "Sure you can't stay, sweetheart?"

"I'm pretty sure y-you don't need me to stay any longer."

"If you were here, I would."

You should make your excuses, get the money, and leave.

 

\---

 

And you do. You're proud of yourself. You think that you should reward yourself when you get home. You'll have to evade the watchful eye of your coworker first, though. She's already suspicious of you.

On the drive (read: bike) back to your workplace, you contemplate if you could've just stayed for a little while. Surely they wouldn't notice? There's only two of you in the pizza place, and you could always blame it on the snow if you took too long getting back. You can still feel the warmth in your cheeks (and other places) and it seems like every time you visit Mettaton on a pizza delivery run, he makes you hotter somehow. One way or another, you warm up when you're there. 

 Remember. Don't get attached. He's not using you, but he certainly isn't interested in pursuing a relationship with you. Why would he? There are thousands of better viable options for him to pick from. He's toying with you now, knowing that you'd be harder to entice than many others, and sees you as a challenge. Had you not stopped yourself back when you delivered his pizza for the second time, he would have won there and then, and once he gets his way, he'll leave you alone. Completely. You can't kid yourself that all of this means anything.

What about this whole fake-dating thing? What happens when he secures himself a date? Will you be tossed aside, no longer needed? Your hand grazes over the back of your neck and you drag it down to one side, feeling for where he left a hickey. You know the spot. You'd all but fucking circled it. It stared out at you when you got changed, threatened to peek over the collars of your shirts, forced you to tilt your head a certain way in your selfies to cover it. Did he do this to everyone? Marked the ones he'd already gone through?

 _Time will tell,_ he said. _I'd date you in a heartbeat,_ he said.

You wonder how many times those lines have been used on other people, like paragraphs in a book, lyrics in a song, lines in a script.

 

\---

 

 **[Mettaton:** Quick, my lovely, I need help. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Hello? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Are you there? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** You'd better be. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** pick up **]**

 **[Mettaton:** come ooooon **]**

 **[Mettaton:** answer meeeeee **]**

 **[Mettaton:** i need help **]**

 

And _you_ needed a relaxing, stress-free Friday night off, but we don't all get what we want, and Mettaton's frantic texting makes it seem like the situation is pretty urgent.

 

 **[You:** what's up? are u okay? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Oh, good, you're here! I was close to begging. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Not in the good way, either. Anyway, I have a date tonight with a human! **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Are you proud of me, darling? :) **]**

 

Your heart sinks and the little fucking smiley face tears at the strings of said heart. You know exactly what you're going to say, but the difference between what you _should_ say and what you _want to_ say is startling.

**[You:** omg, good going, mett! i feel like a proud parent. when are you going? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Tonight! That's why I'm texting you. I'm stuck on what to wear. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Do I wear what I wore on our first or second date? **]**

 **[You:** uhhhhhhh second. first outfit was cute but you look hot in those shorts. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Thank you, darling! I knew that anyway but it's nice to hear it from you. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready and go. I'll text you later to let you know how it goes. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Thank you so, so much for helping me. Words can't even express my gratitude. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** You're a star. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Toodles! **]**

 

You can't get rid of the depressing feeling sitting at the bottom of your stomach. You're just doing your job, and that was to help him date someone else. He's overly-affectionate. His kisses and hugs and hand-holding don't mean that he likes you.

It's only a matter of time before he forgets you completely.

 

\---

 

Your Friday night off is going well, all things considered. Sure, you couldn't stop thinking about Mettaton's date, but you're happy for him and you're not even going to think about sabotaging it or texting him constantly. That's a dick move, and if you ever want to mean anything more to him then you can't be pulling stunts like that. The rain hits your windows ominously, reminding you of how shitty the weather is, and kind of forcing you to be glad that you weren't out in it. Yeah. That's an upside to not going out tonight.

Your favourite show is on - you'd nearly missed it due to your slightly-delayed scheduled hour of 'wallowing in self-pity' - and you're lying sideways across the sofa, in nothing but your underwear, a hoodie, and five blankets. You're ashamed to admit that you don't own pyjamas or actual sleepwear of any kind, and investing in some would probably good while your apartment feels like the depths of Antarctica. You're just too lazy, too busy, too any-other-excuse to go out and buy a pair or two.

You'd come close to drifting off, but you forced yourself to stay awake in case Mettaton needed any more help with his date. The date that wasn't with you. You stalked Tumblr, checked Facebook, even tried to write something to take your mind off wanting so desperately to lean against the armrest and fucking sleep through the next world war.

It was the doorbell that did it, though.

You look over at the entrance to your apartment, confused. Nobody ever calls round. You're not even sure if people know where you live. Maybe it's the guy coming to fix the heating? Who knows. In any case, you're going to have to awkwardly stand behind the door while you answer it, because you're not inviting anyone in and you're not about to get changed just to say a polite hello.

There's no peephole on your door (budget cuts were shit) so you make do with opening the door a crack and peering out. It's...Mettaton? Rain-soaked hair, a straight-faced expression that you've never seen him make before, and eyeliner streaming down the side of his face. Things must have been pretty bad for him to allow himself to walk out in public looking so...not him. Not glamorous, not fabulous, not perfectly pristine. Still attractive, though, and you can't take that away from him.

"Mett?" you say, opening your door fully. He doesn't even seem phased by your lack of proper clothing, and he looks you dead in the eyes.

"Can I c-come in? I'm sorry, darling, I know it's late and you're probably busy, but I just- please let me in."

"Of course you can." You step aside for him to walk in, and as you shut the door you see him looking around curiously at the inside of your apartment. You return to the sofa, this time curling up at one end and crossing your legs to make room, and pat the spot opposite you. He sits down in the same fashion as you, his long legs practically twisting into a pretzel as he crossed them. "Are you okay? Don't take this the wrong way, but you look...not as fabulous as normal."

"It's raining."

"I guessed. What happened?"

He sighs, messing with his hands. "Well, we went to the bar that I took you on our first date. First...fake date. And...since my getting a little tipsy went down so well last time, I- I guess I thought it would work again. And it didn't."

"Oh, Mett."

"And I really wanted them to like me! I really liked them, darling. I thought I was doing everything right."

"Did...did you do something bad?"

"No. God, no. I just...I think they only wanted the sex, if I'm honest. I don't exactly want to shed that reputation but it's saddening being viewed as an object rather than _someone._ "

"...Then we can have a better night. The two of us." You reach a hand to the middle of the both of you.

"Really?" he asks. He looks hopeful, and gives you a small smile. "That'd be wonderful."

 

\---

 

It had been an hour and a half. You're very thankful that your laptop can stream Netflix through your TV. You're also very thankful that your sofa can hold two people comfortably. You're _also_ very thankful that your blankets are so big.

Mostly, you're thankful that Mettaton is warm, because your apartment is still cold, but you're not with Mettaton's arms around you and torso underneath you.

He's a good cuddler, and his stupid noodle arms coil around you protectively. You went from hugging him supportively, to leaning too far forward, to him accepting that you're going to be lying on top of him and sliding down the sofa so you can stretch out. Neither of you were actually watching Netflix any more (binge-watching _Pretty Little Liars_ had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now you were just getting that weirdly eerie 'are you still watching?' screen from Netflix) and you were both perfectly content with just lying with each other. His fans keep your front warm while his arms keep your back warm, and if he's still upset about the date, he doesn't show it.

Somewhere along the line, he had started to trace his fingers idly on the fabric of your hoodie that covered your lower back, and at first you weren't really paying attention to exactly what he was drawing but now you are, because you think you just caught something.

"Mett...did you just write 'PENIS' on my back?"

"How dare you accuse me of such childish and immature behaviour." He then draws said body part to accompany the text, along with what you think is a heart. Could just be another tiny, misshapen dick, though.

 You don't even have to look up to hear him giggling. His chest plate moves up and down ever so slightly with his laughs.

"You're a little drunk, aren't you?" you say, grinning.

"I thought you knew this."

"No, I do." There's silence. "Do you wanna stay over? I could very easily fall asleep like this."

"Mm. If you don't mind, darling."

"Do you have your charger?"

"It's in my bag. I always carry around a spare." You look around, spotting his little clutch across the other side of the room. He sleepily bats his eyelashes at you. "I'm in less of a suitable position to move."

"Fiiiine. How far does it reach?"

"Five meters maximum," he says with a smile. You glance over at the nearest plug socket, by the TV. That should be fine.

You awkwardly shuffle yourself off him, trying not to rub against his body _too_ much (you do, of course, but you think he's too tired to appreciate it) and you weakly step over to the bag.

The first thing in there is his purse. To be expected, you guess - it's pink satin with ball clasps holding it shut. The next thing you have to rifle past is a small book of some sort. Planner? Schedule?

You turn your head to look back at him. He's staring up at the ceiling, unmoving. Moving the elastic strap to one side, you open the book. Glittery pink gel pen flashes out at you. Definitely a diary.

 _'Don't read it. This is an invasion of privacy,'_ your head is screaming, but while your heart yawns and offers up a _'fuck it, do whatever'_ , you decide to follow the latter.

You flick through some entries. His handwriting is _this_ close to being considered 'neat', but it's loopy and scrawly in some places where you assume he's written faster. It's still readable and so _him_ that you find yourself smiling at even just the hearts replacing the dots over his 'I's (you remember that they're called tittles, but it's easier to say dots). One entry that you linger on for no particular reason is from early last month.

 

**[2nd November**

**Dear darling diary,**

**My new show premiered today! Oh, it was so much fun. Even the hustle and bustle beforehand ~~was cool~~   ~~nice~~  felt happy, like the whole atmosphere was lifting as everyone got ready to watch. Going live ~~gives me~~ is such a rush!]**

 

And another from a little later.

 

**[14th November**

**Dear diary, my darling,**

**I don't even like human food that much but there's a pizza ~~store~~ place that's just opened up near my apartment. I'll have to remember. ~~I wonder if they have any cute delivery people...?~~**

**A girl stayed behind after the show. I was ready to give her an autograph, maybe take a selfie or tell her some encouraging words, but all she asked was if she could come backstage. I obliged. That's my job.]**

 

It's...not his job to cater to horny fans, though. That's not what he's there for. At the end of the day, he's still a person, even though he might not be human. The heat builds in your cheeks, and you start to get irrationally angry on his behalf.

You flip to anything more recent. A chunk of the diary isn't filled in, presumably because they're being saved for when he wants to write something exciting instead of sticking to a strict entry-a-day rule. You find where it picks up at the most recent date - yesterday.

 

**[5th December**

**(I'm running out of alliterate names to call you, diary),**

**I think I ~~love~~ like someone? But it's hard for me to tell, because I don't feel things in the same way humans do. Our date was fun, at least.]**

 

Oh. Oh, no. He might like you. You've been pushing him back in fear of misinterpreting things but _this whole time_ he's been into you?

It's wrong to snoop, and diaries normally contain people's most private thoughts. It's not your place to read what he doesn't want to tell people. It's written in there for a fucking reason, and that reason is that he's not comfortable saying it out loud, or talking to anyone about it. If anyone, Alphys would arguably be the only one close enough to read it. You're not even a close second.

Considering this - and making a note that listening to your heart isn't always the best thing - you push the diary back into the bag, hurriedly grabbing his weirdly-shaped charger before crawling around the TV to plug it in. You carefully stretch it from the socket to him, and he sits up.

"Thank you, my dear." You watch as he presses at the back of his neck, opening a small compartment where the end of the charging cable fits. It's cleverly designed so that it sits flat in the charging jack with a small dip where he can slide a finger under it to pull it out again. That's probably so that he can sleep on his back without having a lead jutting out of him. Good ol' Alphys. "There we go. I feel slightly refreshed already. I'd feel ten times better if you got back on my front, though."

You smile and clamber back onto him, shuffling to get back into the position that you had before. This time, though, he snakes his hands _under_ your hoodie to rest on your bare skin. The heat in them combined with the little pattern-tracing that he's gotten used to doing results in possibly _the_ most relaxing cuddle ever. He sighs - does he even need to? - and shifts himself to lie properly back against the armrest.

 "Are you c-comfortable?" he asks wearily, his voice glitching due to tiredness.

"Yeah. Your hands-" Your voice cuts off as your breath hitches, and Mettaton smiles down at you, guessing that he's hit a sensitive spot. He guessed right, and trails his fingers over them again, this time lightly scraping his nails across too. "-...it's just so nice. I could get used to this."

"Maybe you should, darling," he says with a chuckle before you feel him power down.

You look up. His eyes are closed (thankfully, it'd be creepy if he 'slept' with them open) and all you can hear is the low purr of his fans, just to let you know that he's still alive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey reader, you really gotta stop doubting yourself, the robot has a massive fucking crush on you but you just. aren't. realising it
> 
> have you noticed how i never write how the previous chapter's dates end? there's actually a good reason for it. it's bc i'm lazy as fucking shit
> 
> anyway the start of the next one will continue where this one left off in a more linear way that the others did, i.e. you get cute morning mett rather than having a day or two in between events
> 
> tumblr (again, open to yelling, crying, and praise, but screaming is against the rules): polarise.co.vu


	6. someone metallic, a screw or two, someone old [to him], someone new [to you]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is basically fluff + an excuse to bring in someone else holla motherfuckers strap in
> 
> also idk how many people would know this band but i listened to satellite stories non-stop while writing this?? the songs have such a happy vibe idk

You wake up to the sound of mechanical whirring and a pain on your stomach that tells you that you've been lying on something the wrong way for longer than you should've. Mettaton's arms are still wrapped tightly around your waist, although his gentle tracing had stopped as soon as he powered down.

Speaking of which, you wearily look up to see if he's awake. He isn't, which makes it incredibly hard for you to move yourself - his metal noodle arms around you are way too strong for you to break free from, but you don't exactly mind. Just lying here is comforting. Sunlight streams through your windows, lighting up patches of your room and reflecting slightly off various areas of Mettaton. You idly walk two fingers up and down his side, figuring that he can't actually feel it since he's turned off.

You're wrong. His eyes flicker open, he blinks twice, then looks down at you. A little smile immediately pushes itself onto his face.

"C-couldn't even w-w-wait for me to w-wake up, d-darling-ing?" he says quietly, his voice broken and static-y, repeating himself in parts.

"...Are you okay?" you ask, genuinely concerned for his safety.

"This is w-what I t-told you-ou about. M-morning-ing me is t-terrible," he mutters. You feel bad for pointing it out, now. Fuck you at yourself.

"Nah, it's endearing. As long as it's not causing you problems or hurting you."

"I-it'll clear up-p-p after a f-few minutes." He pauses. "See. It's g-going already."

You give him an encouraging smile. "It's cute. Don't worry about it."

There's an awkward silence that follows. Neither of you particularly want to move, nor talk about the reason he came here in the first place, nor consider how you actually got into this cuddle huddle. He starts to draw little circles on your skin again, and, caught unawares, your breath hitches.

"We seem t-to like that," he smiles before dragging a nail down you. This elicits another little breath from you, and you can tell that he likes what he's doing to you, because he keeps making extra little motions. "Didn't I t-tell you that you should get used to it?"

"You did," you say, leaning back against him. Unfortunately, this doesn't last long.

"I have to move, d-dearie. Stretch my legs. I'm g-going to sit up now." At least he gave you a warning. He does, but you refuse to move, your body still latched to his. He laughs, and you smile again.

"Y'fuhlin' be'er 'bout th' da'e?" you mutter. Your cheek against his chest plate impairs your speech and you make minimal fucking effort to correct yourself.

"English, darling."

You lean your head back a bit to speak, and find yourself leaning back against his hands on your back, about arm's length from his chest and in his lap. "I said, are you feeling better about the date?"

"Ohhh. Well, it's still moderately upsetting, but I'll g-get over it. You definitely helped, though. I don't know what I'd d-do without you."

"...You're so sweet," you mumble, avoiding his eyeline and hoping he doesn't notice your cheeks flaring up.

"I try."

"Do you? I thought it came naturally to you."

"Only after a long while of practicing being overly nice to people. Not that I wasn't nice before I was in- uh...hm. Before I became corporeal. That's the t-term. Anyways, it took me a while to love other people because I didn't exactly love myself."

"Really?"

"Mm. I...um..." He looks away from you and sighs. "Can I show you something?"

"Would it offend my grandma?"

"God, no, sweetheart, not that kind of something. That comes later, as will you. Just...bear with me."

He removes his hands from around you, and scrapes his fringe back, tucking it behind his ear. Nothing looks any different to before. At first you don't understand, but then he pushes in around the right side of his forehead, making two little screws surface. He twists them both in his fingers, and once they've been removed, holds them out to you as a sign that you should take them. You clutch them tightly.

He then repeats the action on his right cheek - pushing down to make the screws raise and then undoing them. You take them without hesitation.

"Darling, I- this is...why I never used to show this half of my face. I figured if you can see me at my morning worst, you can handle my pre-surface even worse-r."

A panel falls away from his face as he holds onto it, similar to removing a small mask. Underneath is is a mess of red, white, blue, yellow, black wires and tiny boxes with flashing lights. Level with his left eye is an eye shape, except there's just solid white where his pupil and iris should be. You feel as though you've peeled back his skin - this is the robot equivalent of flesh, you guess, and it's weird as shit to see.

You blink, taking in every small lead and blinking LED.

"This quarter of my face was never finished before we got to come up to the surface. It's not even permanent now. Alphys is having me test it out to make sure it works before she welds it on." You nod eagerly, and he continues.

"And I always hid it because it showed that I wasn't human. I mean, everyone already knew that, but I could kid myself that I was until I saw it. It _killed_ me to wake up and see this...ugly chunk of wire and metal where I should have another eye. So I didn't think my fans should have to see it either. It's kind of jarring, right?"

You shake your head. "I think it looks perfectly fine. Makes you look unique."

"...You don't have to lie t-to me, darling. I can handle it."

"You think I'm lying to you?"

"Literally _nobody_ could like this-" He gestures to the patch, "ugly little _thing_."

"I could. I do, in fact. Can you feel anything in it?"

"No. My nerve sensors, eye coverings, etcetera are all on this plate." He taps his nails against the covering that he took off.

"What if I kissed it?" He just blinks. The white 'eye' on his right side doesn't move at all. "Seriously, would anything happen that I should know about before I do?"

"N-no, except that I might combust."

"R-"

"Figuratively, sweet. Give it your best shot."

You give him a small smile, and then lean to look up at the exposed wires. You really,  _really_ hope this doesn't hurt him (although you imagine he'd enjoy it anyway), and you shift your body upwards, leaning on your ankles wrapped around his thighs to keep you up. You plant a small kiss on the part above his eye, where it couldn't hurt much. It kinda feels like kissing corrugated cardboard, with all the small ridges in the wire.

As you lean back, he hides his face from you in his hands, and his fans whirr to some whole other extreme that you've never heard before. In fact, pretty much his entire body is vibrating with the force of it, and you're scared that he's going to overheat too much and...you don't know, the robotic equivalent of pass out, or something. Today so far had been a whole half hour of finding out robot equivalents of mundane actions, it seemed.

"Oh my god, Mett, how flustered did that make you? Christ. At least you're keeping my front side warm." You glance down. You're still in a hoodie and underwear. Nothing had changed there. When he doesn't respond, you try to pry his hands from his face. "Hey. Mett. You okay?"

"F-fine, darling! Never been better. Never. I'm a little- a little, uh- can't quite think of h-how to say things properly."

"So now you know how I felt outside your apartment yesterday."

"Hush. Hush, hush."

"Are you telling me that you do stuff like...what happened yesterday, and a little kiss makes you this embarrassed?"

"I-I'm just not used to it, 'tis all."

Hm. It kind of fits into place. Knowing how to handle sexual advances but not romantic ones, turning down offers of dates from fans but accepting propositions...it's almost as if it's what he's been conditioned to think.

"Do you want me to help put your face plate thingy back on?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

"Give it here. I can see what I'm doing better than you can." You swap the screws for the plate, and you shuffle (was that a breath you heard from him? Maybe, but you're ignoring it for now) to get slightly closer to the exposed wires. You press it onto the area, slotting it into place and aligning the holes while you take the first screw from him and twist it into place. Mettaton helpfully offers up the screws when you need them. You keep a firm hold on the plate even while doing the second, just in case it falls or moves and you damage it somehow, but by the third it can support itself, and that and the fourth screw fits in with ease. You give it a tap for good measure, then flicker your eyes down to meet Mettaton's.

He's looking up at you. At this angle, your nose is only slightly above his, and you find yourself not wanting to move.

He bats his eyelashes, and you laugh nervously, lowering yourself a little to look him directly in the eyes.

"You know you want to kiss me again, sweetheart. I can see it in your face. In your eyes. In your pretty little lips. In the way you're holding your breath. In the way you're blinking at me."

You swallow, and slowly reach behind you. He leans closer to you, touching his nose to yours. "How about we make this moment last?"

"Oh, I will."

You bring your arm around, the sound of the pillow whooshing through the air becoming music to your ears. It hits the side of Mettaton's face with a very, _very_ satisfying _whump,_ and the sight of his surprised, confused face makes you crease with laughter.

 "...I'm glad you're having fun," he deadpans, but you can tell he isn't serious. He lets a small smirk creep onto his face and he rests his hands on your hips again. "That makes one of us."

"Holy fuck, your face is a picture. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't not do it."

"I can't believe you would hurt me in this way, sweetheart. I was _this_ close to kissing you and it would have been cute and romantic and you just _launched a cushion into my face and completely fucking ruined it._ "

His language makes you laugh even more, and you have to cover your mouth before you start laughing too loud. Every time you look at him, you laugh, and eventually he starts properly laughing instead of just smirking at you.

When you both finally calm down, you're left looking at him with a cheerful smile on your face, happier than you've been in months.

"D'ya think we made the moment last?" you ask somewhat breathlessly.

"Most certainly, and I can only hope there'll be many more moments just like this one," he says with a kind smile, a glimmer in his eyes, and finally, his lips on yours.

 

\---

 

 So maybe you had kissed for a little while after that first one.

Who cares? It's all just for fun.

 

\---

 

You had reluctantly gotten changed into regular clothes while Mettaton fixed his pillow-smushed hair and reapplied some casual makeup. You leaned against the door after shutting it, with your thoughts lost somewhere between 'it won't matter what you do' and 'holy shit, I want him to do it again'. He's a good kisser, you'll give him that.

With one final sigh, you leave your room. Mettaton is waiting on your sofa, flicking through his phone absentmindedly.

"Do you want to do anything today?" you ask.

"Well, darling, I actually have three hour show rehearsals in approximately...twenty minutes," he says with a pout. "So I can't. But I'd planned to meet up with an old...uh, friend. I haven't seen him since we left the underground. If you'd like, you two can wait in my apartment while I'm at rehearsals. I get the feeling you'd get on very well."

You don't like the hesitation on 'friend'. Your mind assumes 'ex', and your heart assumes the worst.

"What makes you think that?"

"You have- or in his case, _had_ similar jobs, and similar cynical attitudes. Just trust me on this one, darling."

"I trust you. Was it one of your crew or something?"

"Nope. I was his boss back when I still owned my resort. We got on like a house on fire."

"...That well?"

"What? No, of course not."

"But you said 'like a house on fire'. That means that you got on pretty well."

"Oh, dear, I have my phrases mixed up. I always thought that was meant in the sense that the house is completely destroyed and it's a terrible situation for everyone involved, not at all unlike the rocky relationship we had." He smiles and bats his eyelashes way too casually. "And by relationship, I mean purely professional. If you exclude the promotional criteria, of course."

"Mett, that's gross."

He shrugs. "Half-joking, darling! Anyways, since I have to be at my studio pretty soon, we could walk to my apartment and I could let you stay there before he gets there?"

"Sure thing. Your apartment isn't far."

 

\---

 

The walk is the longest ten minutes of your life, and you weren't quite sure if it was appropriate to hold his hand. Instead, you make do with jokingly linking arms and skipping with him when an appropriate time came up in the friendly conversation, and end up staying that way. Your legs hurt from the constant skipping (how he managed it in heeled boots, you'll never know) and so when he unlocks his apartment to let you in, the first thing you do is flop onto his couch. The same one you had your first encounter with him on. Yowch.

Technically speaking, it was your second encounter with him, but the first of that particular nature.

 "Will you be okay here while I'm gone, sweetcheeks?" he says, heading into what you presume is his room.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll try not to break anything."

"That's the spirit!" He reappears pulling a black sweatshirt over his head. "If my friend gets here, just let him in."

"How will I know if it's him?"

"He's just a little taller than you, cat-like, gingery-orange fur. God knows what he'll be wearing but I have no doubts that it'll be an atrocity to fashion." You chuckle as he gets his keys. "Be seeing you, my lovely. Don't have too much fun while I'm out."

"I woooon't."

He winks at you as he leaves, and then you're left in silence in this somewhat unfamiliar place. 

How much snooping do you _want_  to do? Fucking _tons._

How much snooping are you _going_ to do? Fucking _none._

You're just about to make yourself a cup of coffee when the doorbell rings...four times, in different keys that sound oddly like the first four notes of Mettaton's theme tune. Of course. You look through the peephole. This is definitely Mettaton's friend.

You open the door with a warm smile. Black jeans, grey shirt, and a black hoodie don't go well with orange, but you guess he can't do anything about the colour of his fur. He has a bored expression on his face at first, like he'd much rather be doing anything else, but then it changes to a wide-eyed strained smile.

"Oh, Mettaton's busy? That's cool. I'll just leave," he says, gesturing over his shoulder.

"Oh, he's just at rehearsals. He said he'll be back soon but he said I was free to invite you in. Seems like he really wants to see you again," you offer. His expression changes _yet again_ to one of confusion.

"Really? God, he's changed. Can I, uh, come in?" You nod and step aside for him. He plods inside, looking around. "Nice place. You live here with him or what?"

"Nope. I'm just housesitting. Keeping you company." You take your seat on the couch again and he sits at the opposite end, resting his ankle on his opposite knee and jiggling his leg.

"Are you his-"

"No, just a friend," you say, far too quickly for your own liking. "Sorry, but I don't think I got your name."

"...Uh, my real one ain't important. Everyone calls me Burgerpants." You frown in confusion as he pulls a brown roll of something out of his pocket, both at said something and his apparent nickname. "Just a name I got called back in the underground. Gimme a chance to lighten up and I'll probably tell you the story. I can talk for fucking hours if I want to. Trait picked up from my boss, I guess."

He pulls out a lighter and flicks it on, simmering the end of the roll. You recognise the smell. The very much currently illegal smell. "Hey, it's medicinal," he says, noting the look on your face.

"I'm sure."

"You got me. You wouldn't believe how many times I took a picture with the 'no smoking' sign in the MTT-Brand Burger Emporium." You smile at how his voice changes when saying the name of Mettaton's restaurant, as if he's mocking it. "Listen, kid, piece of advice. Never get a minimum wage job."

"Too late."

"Damn. Can't save 'em all, then." He takes a drag before offering it to you.

"No, thanks. I don't think Mett would want you smoking in here, by the way, legal or otherwise."

"I'm preparing myself for a verbal beatdown. He was the shittiest boss, and honestly, I'm convinced that he's only called me back to shout at me for something else. There was this one time when he yelled at me for rolling my work shirt sleeves up. It was short-sleeved anyway, but...I wanted to make it look like how the cool people wear 'em, you know? I thought that I might as well. It's not like I took the whole damn thing off or anything." Another drag. "I couldn't kick his ass back in the day. He still just had that little box form. The calculator. Rectangle. Whatever you wanna call it. I would've just broken my toes."

"So you're planning to kick his ass _now?"_

"I like the way you think, buddy," he smirks, "but nah. Not my style. I'm a 'suck it up and take it' kinda guy. Anyway..." He looks you up and down, and gives you a little upwards nod. "What're your ulterior motives?"

"What?"

"Always used to tell myself that friendship is just a hot person's way of making you their slave. You're being way too nice to me. What are you after?"

You're almost speechless. "...Nothing? You seem pretty cool and you're easy to talk to. I'm not after anything, I swear."

"Good to hear. Hey, I didn't tell you how I got my nickname, did I?"

 

\---

 

Burgerpants is fun. He's light and pretty chilled out (although that could just be what he's smoking) and you find out not only how he got his nickname, but many other pretty biased tales of how awful a boss Mettaton was. Said robot is so nice to you that you find it hard to imagine him being rude or snooty towards his employees - if anything, you expected the opposite - but you find the stories amusing nevertheless.

"Oh, god, there was this one time where he- he sorta wheeled right past the wet floor sign and into the wet patch and fucking skidded right across the whole lobby into a wall," Burgerpants says. He laughs while talking, which is a good indicator that he's comfortable with you. "It was comedy gold, lemme tell ya. Laughed a little too loudly though, because he heard, yelled at me in front of everyone, and then got his own back later by running over my foot. You know how much that box weighs? A ton."

"A Metta-ton?"

He grimaces at your pun, and you flash him double pistols and a wink. "... _Anyway_ ," he continues pointedly, "I don't think my foot's ever fully recovered, to be honest. It still has a little tyre imprint. Could probably chop it off and sell it if I'm ever desperate for a quick buck, though. D'ya think it counts as an autograph?"

"Someone somewhere would buy it."

"I'll be keepin' that in mind. Man, I remember those days like they were last week. Weird to think it's nearly been a whole year since we were freed."

"What was it like down there?" you ask. Mettaton hardly told you anything about the underground. You assumed that it was to do with his personal issues and didn't want to pry.

"I dunno, like up here but with more monsters, I guess. We had weird shit that you guys would find fascinating, and vice versa. I'm in college now, tryna get some qualifications together since all I had down there was my shitty _fabu-tastic_ dead-end job." He pauses, shrugs, and takes another drag all in the space of three seconds. "I guess all I have up here is college, though, I can't really complain. My classmates moan and whine about our professor but they have no goddamn clue. At least my _current professor_ doesn't play me a CD full of songs about how terrible I am every time I fuck up."

"Oh my _god_ ," you snigger.

"Your boyfriend is a horrible person."

"He's _not_ my boyfriend. And he's not horrible to _me_ , anyway." 

 "Yeah, alright." He suddenly stops to sniff the air. You can't smell anything, and you wonder if this is some monster/cat reflex thing that you can't be a part of. "What's that smell?"

"I don't-"

He looks you dead in the eyes. "Bullshit."

You groan irritably. "I swear, we're not dating." He takes in a long nasal breath. "...Not currently, anyway."

"Ha! Aha! There it is." He grins, proud of himself, and relaxes back into the sofa. "You're killin' me, little buddy. Hey, kinda OT, but you said you had a job?"

"...Uh, yeah?"

"I'll help you get with Mettaton if you can at least get me a job interview there. College is eliminating what was left of my gold from the underground and I need something. Thank god that the exchange rate was high when I changed it all, but now I have nothing. So yeah. I know all his little mannerisms and stuff. I worked with him for years. Plus, I got dirt that you can hold against him." He has a chilled expression coupled with a small smirk, and holds out his paw. "Whaddya say? I know your standards are probably higher than this shit show, but do we have a deal?"

 You smirk back in response and shake on it. "Deal. But all I can promise is that I'll get you an interview. It's completely on you to get the job itself."

You could handle being Burgerpants' partner in crime (or rather, job-scrounging) if it meant he'd help you get to Mettaton.

You decide that you like Burgerpants a lot. "I'm gonna make a coffee, then. A celebration of our newfound acquaintanceship. Want one?"

"Black, no sugar. Gotta prepare myself for the feeling of having another minimum wage job."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have this really dumb and really lame headcanon that once mett left the underground for the surface, he'd still try to keep in touch with good ol' bp, and they have a kind of strained relationship but eventually mett apologises for being a bit of a dick to him and bp's like 'nah, it's fine, at least it prepared me for the real world'
> 
> aaaa it's lame but i wanna see more bp in mtt/reader fics because a) i love him too and b) he deserves to be in more of these fics
> 
> hello also the morning glitching was at least partially inspired by [bookmarks by koalolive](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5237189/chapters/12079643)! i recommended it in the last notes too but it's so fucking good if you haven't read it already do it now, and shoutout to the author for being such a chill person too <3
> 
> tumblr (send memes urgently): polarise.co.vu


	7. "you are a horrible person. that's what it says. a horrible person, darling, and we weren't even testing for that!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i'm sorry i'm a terrible writer this took so long to finish
> 
> i actually had a lot of trouble writing this because i knew what i wanted to happen but not how to pad it out. it probably shows because this is just some bs filler chapter and i'm also not having the best week
> 
> this gets incredibly...... _metta_ in one part
> 
> fun fact of today: my 'n' key keeps fucking up and so while i was trying to get whatever crumbs were under there out, i ended up typing 'mettatonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn'. idfk i found it funny because that's a canon thing whatever you don't care here's the story

 

So this is your life now - helping a robot get his romantic shit together so he can stop relying solely on sexual attention as a substitute for actual emotional connections, and in turn, giving him dating advice so he can date other people before possibly dating you once he's sure he won't fuck it up, and now you're secretly helping his old employee get _his_ shit together by securing him a job interview at your pizza place so he can return the favour and help you get to Mettaton.

You swear you've never seen someone's eyes go as wide as Burgerpants' do when he sees Mettaton step through the door.

"Hello, my lovelies, I'm _hoooome!"_

Burgerpants rolls his eyes and takes a final draw before leaning over the back of the sofa to look at Mettaton, and then promptly chokes on his own smoke, nearly dropping what little is left of the blunt in surprise.

"Holy _shit,_ you're not a rectangle any more," is all the cat says. Mettaton puts on a somewhat forced smile and drapes himself across the armchair, nodding in acknowledgement at you before focusing on Burgerpants.

"So," he starts, "long time no see, darling."

"Right."

"How have you been?"

Burgerpants shrugs and shifts. You notice that he seems more uncomfortable now he knows Mettaton isn't just a box, and you're quite surprised he's never even seen his EX form _once._ You would've thought he'd at least check in on his shows. "Fine. Just fine. Struggling to get a college degree, very little money, y'know how it is."

"Can't say that I do."

"Don't," the cat hisses. "Don't make me regret trying to meet up with you again."

Mettaton stays silent and checks his nails. "...I take it you've settled in okay on the surface?"

"If you count bein' up to my ears in student debt into that 'okay', then sure! I'm settling in just fuckin' _dandy_."

"You know that's not what I meant." There's a low growl resting at the back of Mettaton's throat while he spoke, although you didn't expect Burgerpants to hear it. "I was just unsure if you think your life up here is better or not. I know you had it pretty good in the underground, with your boss being a gorgeous robot and those two girls in the alley fawning over your every beck and call."

"Really? You sure? You treated me like absolute shit. Sorry, man, it had to be said. Everyone said you were so nice but I guess I never saw that side of you."

"I only used to tease you. Nothing serious. You were just young and irritable and incredibly fun for me to annoy."

"Are you-"

"I thought it might make having to spend a lot of time there a little easier. I see now that it made it seem longer."

"Literally the longest three years of my life. I'm pretty sure I wasted the best years of my life in there. I coulda been out getting girls and partying...fuckin' _nope_. Instead I had to put up with this shiny, weirdly-humanoid robot as a boss who'd insist that I sell inedible burgers for a living. Come on, even _Frisk_ couldn't eat _those_ , and they forced themself to when fighting you on your show. Hope you gave 'em serious props after that."

You're not sure you remember who Frisk is, but Mettaton reacted to the word 'frisky' that one time, and not in a good way. "I know. I just love to keep things glamorous, though," he says, pointedly avoiding the Frisk comment. You'd noticed his habit of doing that. Avoiding things he didn't want to talk about, or completely ignoring his problems until they miraculously went away. That was one of the things he listed under his self-titled 'reasons not to date me' list on your first date. His 'if you date me, this is what you're getting' list.

(Not that it changed your mind in any way. You were already dead-set on staying close to him at that point. No flaw could really turn you away.)

"Oh, bo- I mean, _I know._ I know how much sparkle those things had. And the way you'd force me to give people the 'MTT-Brand Customer Satisfaction Attitude' and say some shitty variant of 'fabu-tastic' or whatever."

"I'm sorry."

Burgerpants looks like he's about to speak, and then he closes his mouth again and gives him an incredulous look. You'd also shake your head in disbelief if you weren't used to Mettaton pulling surprises on you like rabbits from a hat. "You're...actually apologising? Boss- I mean, uh, Mettaton, you okay, my dude?"

Mettaton smiles at him. It's one of those furrowed brow, kinda frowny confused smiles that make him look really cute, but remember! You're definitely not taking notes on how cute his facial expressions look! Nope!

"Darling, I'm just peachy. I figured it'd be better to make a fresh start now that we're all on the surface, and not let old things hold us back," he says. "I'm sorry you thought I was a terrible boss. I'm willing to put it behind us and start anew."

" _You're_ willing to put it behind _you_? I'm sorry, were _you_ the one being relentlessly mocked and teased?" Mettaton blinked at him, obviously expecting a more forgiving response. He briefly glances to you, and you give him a small pursed-lipped smile. "Whatever. Sure. Let's forget about it. NBD now, right?" He holds out a paw, not reaching across you but just holding it out in the air in front of him so Mettaton could meet him...not halfway. More like three-quarters of the way.

Mettaton extends his noodle-y arm to shake his paw. Burgerpants sighs irritably.

"Fucking hell, _of course_ you have weird extendable arms."

The familiar robotic laugh rings from your side, even though you're not facing him, and it still makes you grin stupidly. Burgerpants catches your eye while having his hand vigorously shaken up and down and throws you a look.

You should learn not to make your crush so obvious in front of others.

 

\---

 

Mettaton had to plug himself into the wall while the three of you sprawled across his sofa and made light conversation whilst watching shitty daytime TV. Burgerpants leaned with his back against the join in between the armrest and the sofa back, with one foot jiggling on the ground and one leg half-crossed and resting on the sofa. You leaned your elbow on the leg of his that _is_ on the sofa, with the rest of your body draped across Mettaton's lap. You noticed that he started to absentmindedly trace things on your legs, and it made you sleepy, but you really didn't wanna fall asleep on Burgerpants' legs. That'd be awkward.

You were almost acting like the only thing keeping those two together, like a bridge between them. It was completely metaphorical, and only made sense in your head, but it's still kinda true. You actually would've liked to know all the stories from when they worked together, but neither of them seemed too chatty.

 Burgerpants leaves abruptly after twenty solid minutes of silence from all of you, and you barely hear the door shut before you feel a big sigh of relief from Mettaton.

"That...didn't go as expected," he says quietly.

"Why?"

"Oh, you're awake." He flinches at the sound of your voice and you smile slightly. "It just could've gone better, that's all. We weren't on the best terms in the underground but I'd have thought he'd be a little friendlier. I assume he was alright with you?"

"Yeah, we chatted shit while you were out. We're good."

"What did he tell you?"

"Just stuff about when he worked for you. He...had a lot to say."

"Liiiiike...?"

"Like how you were in your box form. How you ran the hotel and stuff like that."

"As I thought."

"Mm." You move a little closer to him, and he looks down and smiles.

"What's wrong, darling?"

"Nothing, but you drawing on me makes me sleepy, even though we slept in late."

"Uh, speaking of sleepy..." You can't even guess at what he's going to say, and you give him a curious look, "...would you mind if I switched to my original form so this one can charge? It restores its own energy while I'm in the other one. Alphys told me that I should do it after every rehearsal but I quite enjoyed Burgerpants' reaction to seeing me in something non-rectangular."

"Sure- I mean, no, I wouldn't mind. Yeah. Do it."

"Would you do the honours?"

"But of course, your majesty," you say, shifting yourself while he turns around. You swear you see _some kind of reaction_ to the 'your majesty', but you'll probably bring that up another time. You walk your index and middle finger around the switch first, even making them moonwalk around it. You're having fun until you remember when you're supposed to actually be doing.

"Don't tease me, d-darling."

"Was that a stutter? Can you actually feel that?"

"Just about, sweetheart. And that stutter was just because my energy levels are down, and- _hahhhh._ " He breathes out a little when you trail your whole hand down his back plate, across his switch, and to his waist. " _Okay_ , alright, you win. Just flip it already."

"Someone sounds desperate."

"Don't do that when I'm about to switch, because my other form has next to no functions that you'd enjoy." That was an offer of sex, wasn't it? It was. He implied he would've done something had he been able to stay in his EX form. You smile.

Knowing that he won't be able to respond to your next comment straight away, you say, "guess we'll find out" before flicking the switch across.

The sound of static rings, which tells you that he was about to say something before his little transformation started. In hindsight, it was probably something to do with shielding your eyes, because a white flash of light shines from him (and probably through his apartment window, and across the whole city) and blinds you, making you have to look away. Because of this, you don't see his transformation, and when you look back with small flecks in your eyesight, he's in his unfamiliar little boxy form.

He raises his arms in what looks like a shrug, or a gesture of 'well?'.

"Welcome back," you say with a nod.

"Good to be here."

"I'll bet it is. Can you even feel anything in that? I mean, in that form?"

"No, not really. My arms and hands can, but that's about it." The yellow background of his monitor displayed three red dots across the pixel blocks, presumably indicating an awkward pause or where he would make a thoughtful face. You jab a finger next to one of his buttons. He remains still. "Try as you might, you won't do much."

He's not wrong when he says it's pretty uncomfortable to sit against him in his sentient calculator form, but you make do and curl up at his side, leaning against his side. He's only four foot something, five feet at a stretch in this body, but his bulkiness makes it easy for you to rest against him. It wouldn't surprise you if this massive box of heavy machinery and processing outlets actually weighs more than EX - although you've never _ex_ -actly tried to pick Mettaton up, so you wouldn't know. There's bound to be even more inner workings in EX though, right? Surely he'd need more to deal with facial expressions and movement and generally looking more human?

"Mettaton?"

He buzzes.

"How much do you weigh?"

"...Who told you that that's a good question to ask to break the ice, darling?"

You laugh, internally wincing at how terrible it sounded out loud. "No, no, I mean, like, is your EX form heavier than this one? This looks really bulky and hard to handle on one little wheel, but then thinking about it, EX must have even more machinery in it to make you be able to move your legs and arms and body and make faces and whatever. I'm not thinking of it for weird vanity purposes, I'm just curious about how you work."

"You have some good points, but I'm not actually sure I know the answer that you're looking for. I know for a fact that you wouldn't be able to pick either of these bodies up, though, if that's what you're asking."

"God forbid you ever fall asleep on me, or pass out due to low battery or something."

"Indeed. I'll make sure to keep my fainting to one side." A giggle escapes your mouth. His voice...doesn't sound at all like it usually is in his EX form. It's definitely more what you'd expect from a robot voice, with a buzzing undertone and him almost sounding like everything he says is put through a text-to-speech translator first, but you can still hear the playful tone of his regular voice through it. There are random words that come out in slightly different pitches and that don't quite match up with a normal way of talking. It sounds familiar, though, like you've already heard something similar to it before...excluding his own voice, of course.

"...Out of curiosity, have you or Alphys ever heard of a game called _Portal?"_

"I've never actually tried to play video games, but it wouldn't surprise me if Alphys has played it. Why do you ask, sweetheart?"

"No reason."

"Of course there's a reason."

"Maybe there is, but you wouldn't understand it," you say with a half-shrug.

"Tell meeeeee," he pleads, and his voice breaks and glitches so much as he draws the vowel out that you can't help but feel bad. It may or may not be intentional, but it sounds like someone dragged a pitch slider up and down mixing software to make it waver.

"You just sound like a character from it. Except...well, a male version of her. The little tone changes and buzzes just...make you sound a lot like her, that's all."

He pauses, and you're worried you've offended him until you see his screen flash a little heart. "Oh! Well, I'm sure that's a compliment, my lovely. You like said character, right?"

"She's a robot that's kinda hell-bent on murdering you with puzzle-like 'test chambers', so yeah, I like her quite a lot."

"Ooh, we'd have so much in common," he says, and then laughs. Even his laugh is now robotic - it's not a harsh, remotely evil-sounding cackle or a little giggle, it's literally just 'ha ha ha' repeated in mostly the same pitch, with the occasional one slipping up out of the otherwise monotonous string of letters. You get the feeling it'd grate on your nerves after a while, but you assume Alphys didn't exactly program this body with his laugh in mind. You wonder how long everyone else would've had to put up with that admittedly annoying chortle before he had his newer body finished. Or...bodies, you suppose. You hadn't even had the chance to bring up his NEO form, but you also don't want to meet it. At all. Apparently, that was the human eradication one, and you're a human who does not want to be eradicated, so it might be for the best that he doesn't show you it.

You, uh, really fucking hope that the 'so much in common' he talked about wasn't the intent to murder you.

You shift against him, and something inside him whirrs, albeit a lot louder than his other form. Probably because there's no convenient place for an exhaust and so it just has to work overtime. Wait, he can't even feel it. Why is he flustered?

 "But you...prefer me to this other robot, right?" he says as he coils his arms around you, and you can hear the nervous shake in his voice. You didn't actually think it was possible for Mettaton to be nervous about anything, but you guess that since he's in his box body, he doesn't have facial expressions to give it away. He does, however, have a screen, which blinks red before displaying a question mark.

"Of course I do. That's just a character, and you're...real. Existing. Right here next to my shoulder. That's so much better," you smile, even though he probably can't see you. You suspect his only vision is from the very front, and in no way peripheral, which explains why he's startled every time you even remotely touch his arm - because he's not expecting it, and can't see what you're doing. "And...yeah. This is better than playing _Portal._ Much better."

"I'll have to play it with you," he says, and you nod, "but you'll have to teach me how to play, darling. I'm afraid I'm still not the best with hand-eye coordination. I mean, especially not like this, but I'm still working on it in my EX form too."

"Your hands seem perfectly fine when they're drawing things on me," you mumble. Not bitterly, mind you, you enjoyed that. But you maybe think that he's at least stretching the truth. His coordination _has_ to be fine, otherwise he probably wouldn't be an actor and a dancer.

"What was that? You'll have to speak up, sweetheart, I can't hear you over the sound of how much you love me." You freeze, and really _really_ hope that he can't see you. "No, but seriously, talk a little louder. This box impairs my hearing a little."

 You can't speak up. You know that you might, deep down, actually love him. Just a little. You're unsure as to whether he's picked up on it, or whether it's just his usual flirtatious banter. Oh, god, does he know that you read his diary? Fuck. You don't even know how to feel any more. You don't want to develop any more of a crush on him, because you know that as soon as he practices your dating tips, he'll be off with someone else and you'll be left alone in the dust.

On the other hand, you know he likes you. The diary (sort of) proved it, and he wouldn't be cuddling you all the time and craving your attention if he didn't like you, unless he's just this affectionate with everyone and you haven't yet seen that side of him. You don't want him to be. You want to be the only person he holds close to him like he does, the only person he trusts enough with his secrets and fears.

Fuck it, you like him, and you know you do. You'll have to hold on a little longer until Burgerpants can give you more tips on him. You still get the feeling that you know Mettaton a _lot_ better than Burgerpants does at this point, though.

"I can't hear anything," Mettaton says suddenly. "So I'll just assume that the sound of your adoration grew louder in the past twenty seconds, sweetheart."

"Maybe it did."

"Oh? It's alright, _everyone's_ in love with me." There it is. That sinking feeling like someone just threw your stomach off a cliff. No, scratch that, knowing and _remembering_ that the whole reason you're this close was because he wanted to fuck you and you were the first to turn him down makes your heart feel like someone bitterly tossed it into that heroin needle pit in _Saw II._ You may have been the first to turn him down, but now you're his challenge. To him, once you've given in and let him have his way, he's won, and you're just another strike on the metaphorical chalkboard, another notch in the slightly-less-metaphorical bedpost.

When are you going to stop this and realise that he does actually like you?

"Your silence speaks volumes, darling. Luckily for you, I could fill a book with all the things I'd say to you to fill in the blanks."

Right about now. 

 

\---

 

"You two are up to something," your coworker says, eyeing both you and Burgerpants suspiciously. He'd rather reluctantly agreed to wearing the red uniform shirt ("Why couldn't it be blue? Or purple? Or a nice shade of yellow, even? Anything other than the exact same red that reminds me of my old job.") and your boss had given him a conditional job offer as long as he could interact well with the customers. This is his trial run.

Well, that should probably have quotation marks around it. This is his _Winrar 40-day trial:_  it's likely that it'll actually never end because your boss is so fucking desperate for new employees that he'll probably just be offered a job by default.

"What makes ya say that?" Burgerpants says, leaning casually against the counter. You can see his paw hover over his pocket and then rest on the edge of the metal behind him, resisting the urge to pull out a cigarette.

"I don't know. You just look like you've already done something wrong," she shrugs. "So what was that hassle in the bathrooms? Please don't give me a reason to be suspicious of you guys."

"Nothin', I just didn't want to wear the shirt. Reminded me of my old job, back when I was still in the underground. It...uh, wasn't fun."

"...If I didn't know any better, I'd say you don't actually care about this job," she starts, and she continues before Burgerpants can interrupt, "but I do know better, and this looks...like a set-up of some sort. And as for you," she turns to face you, "if I was at the lowest end of not knowing any better, then I'd say that constant deliveries to the penthouse suite of _that one apartment_ are just coincidences. But I do. And I've done my research."

"You're fucked, kiddo," Burgerpants scoffs quietly, and you yank at his tail. He yowls and quickly flicks it away.

"What...research would that be?" you ask.

"Come on. It's pretty obvious you're dating a certain robotic superstar. I don't even keep up with his Facebook and shit but I've seen some stuff. You could've said! I'm mad jealous but still. Really happy for you." Her smile is sincere, but all you can do is wordlessly shake your head with an open mouth.

"We- we're not dating, really."

Her eyes flicker to Burgerpants, seemingly searching for confirmation. He smirks and gives a vague shrug.

"Wait until the next time someone's gotta deliver pizza to his apartment," he says. "One of us will jump at the chance. Jump a lot further, and a lot higher than the rest of us would. Anyways, little buddy, I'm pretty sure I already wormed this outta you. 'Not currently dating' was what you said before tryna get me to help you get to him."

You _thwap_ him on the shoulder. "Shut up. That was a secret."

"Not anymore. I don't think you'll be needin' much help getting to him - he's already all over you."

You'd left Mettaton earlier to come to work, and his energy levels still weren't high enough for him to see you off in the form you're more familiar with. You can only assume that he's back to his 'usual' self, because your phone sounds out with the text tone you set for him. (Or, rather, the text tone that he _made_ you set for his contact. It's surprising and also kinda disturbing how obedient you are when he has a velvety smooth tone to his voice.)

"That the boyf?" your coworker jokes, and you give her a mock-glare before pulling out your phone. Burgerpants tries to lean and see what's on the screen, but you swat him away and shield your phone, stepping away from the two to check. You hear them laughing and chatting (presumably about you) while you slowly walk to the nearest booth, sliding into it and checking your messages.

 

**[1 new message from Mettaton]**

 

You swipe to check it.

 

 **[Mettaton:** Darling. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Are you alone? **]**

 **[You:** yup. **]**

 

That's not technically a lie, is it? You _are_ alone _now_. Depends what his definition of 'alone' is, though.

 

 **[Mettaton:** Perfect. I need your opinion on something. **]**

 **[You:** sure, go ahead c: **]**

 

There's no reply for a few minutes. Burgerpants calls over to taunt you. "Hey! Has the hot bot abandoned you?"

"Very funny. Hilarious. You should do stand-up comedy."

"I'm here all week," he says, and you hear him mutter "hopefully" at the end of his sentence. Your phone buzzes on the table again, making you jump like you did the very first time you texted Mettaton, when you were waiting for your date invitation.

 

**[1 new picture message from Mettaton]**

**[Mettaton:** Hope you like it, sweetheart. ;) **]**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry/not sorry for my gladoston headcanon
> 
> i don't even know where this is going any more, i had ideas for the earlier chapters but now i'm just ??? ????????
> 
> if anyone has any requests or ideas send 'em my way so there's no two-week gap in between updates ahaaaa. i have an idea of how i could wrap all this up but i need to get a little further in first but the only way to to that is to _stop fuckign writing shitty filler chapters_
> 
> tumblr is [polarise.co.vu](polarise.co.vu) (btw big shoutout to tumblr user [w-rriorgoddess](w-rriorgoddess.tumblr.com) for tagging me in that lovely little post that really brightened my day <3), hmu, send headcanons, send shit, send memes, talk, idm


	8. will you dance to this beat / and hold a lover close? (otherwise known as: The One With Sexual Tension And Robot Nudes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good fucking lord this chapter is just.....pure, unadulterated lust but of course you get nothing haha nope no porn here for a while you aren't even dating yet
> 
> it's a little..........tease-y near the end tho

 

All of Mettaton's outfits look nice. The ones he wears on stage are show-stopping, obviously, with a lot of sequins and glitter and over-the-top-ness. His dresses are either reminiscent of Disney princess wear, with ruffles and lace and extravaganza, or long and flowing ballroom gowns that perfectly form over his curves, made of silk or chiffon or luxurious velvet.

Then there's his casual wear. His loose-fitting crop tops with bottom hems that never quite touch his waist due to the rest being held up by his chest plate; his sequinned booty shorts and leather hotpants; his chunky knitted sweaters that still look fabulous and tasteful.

He even wears suits and tuxedos sometimes. You've seen the shots from when he dresses in a more masculine way for his release parties, and _boy,_ does he know how hot those suits make him. The red newscaster suit is probably the nicest to look at, out of all of them. There's just _something_ about the way the colour looks on him that really does everything else some justice.

But then there's this. This is your favourite.

You're pretty sure your breathing stops when you open the picture. In fact, you're 100% certain that it does, because it hitches like it does when he drags his fingers across your bare skin and you find yourself torn between smiling stupidly down at your phone and keeping the shocked, speechless expression plastered onto your face.

It's not even particularly explicit, or lewd, or otherwise in bad taste. He's a robot, so there aren't really many parts for him to have exposed or covered up, and he probably only wears clothes for modesty.

So it's not the complete lack of upper body wear that makes you tick - even though it probably should, since the fact that he's otherwise clothed makes you think that this would be the equivalent of a topless selfie - and it's not even what little clothes he _does_ have on that does, either. You hesitate to refer to the hot pink panties (with a black heart on the crotch fabric, of course) as 'clothes', but it's also technically not underwear, either, as there's literally no reason for him to be wearing them other than because he knows it'll work you up and because he knows he looks hot in them.

It's the way he has the camera angled above his head as he lies back on what you presume is his bed, tilting his head back to look into the camera with little heart pixels in his eyes. It's the way his free hand is resting tauntingly on his upper thigh, his index finger just touching the top of the underwear. The way his hips are still posed in a way that they every-so-slightly stick out to one side. The way you can just about see the tip of his tongue in his mouth, and the way his smile bares his teeth in such a way that his little fangs are almost _inviting_ you in.

Where is the context? Why has he sent this? Actually, no, you _know_ the reason he's sent it now, and it's to make you all hot and bothered so you'll embarrass yourself at work. And it's working, but you would never admit that to him. You'd never admit defeat. It's a battle of who can tease the other the most without the both of you fucking, and you're going to _win_. You're _determined_.

Another message comes through, making your phone vibrate and startling you.

 

 **[Mettaton:** Are we speechless? I'll assume as much. **]**

 **[You:** oh my god y would u send this i'm at work **]**

 **[Mettaton:** My point exactly, sweetheart. I wanted to know if you liked them. **]**

 **[You:** ffdsfdfdsfdsfdsfdsfdfdsdsfsfdfdsfsfddsfdsf **]**

 **[You:** fuck **]**

 **[You:** ok **]**

 **[You:** i do yes. that's your answer **]**

 **[You:**  and i'm not sayin it's a problem but also i'm at work and ur hot and i can't??? do anything??//???/?? **]**

 

Oh, fuck.

 

 **[Mettaton:** 'Do anything', hm? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Sharing is caring. **]**

 **[You:** ffs i'm not sexting you at work **]**

 **[Mettaton:** So you admit that it was sexual? **]**

 **[You:** FUKC **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Me! **]**

 **[You:** sure **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Oh? **]**

 **[You:** just kiddin have fun on your own now **]**

 

You vow not to respond to any more of his texts, now matter how desperate they get, or how dirty they get, or how often your phone vibrates against your leg in your pocket. Burgerpants eventually points this out.

"Kid, you got Mettaton's hand in there?" he asks, noting how your phone vibrates for the twentieth time in a row. Clearly he remembered the one feature of his old boss that you'd probably like to find out more about.

"I wish," you say. All of your shame left along with the last customer to come in.

"I bet you do. Fuckin' answer him before he loses his shit. You don't want to see that side of him, trust me."

You excuse yourself back to your lonely little booth of sin, checking your messages as fast as you could. Said phone even buzzes with new responses while you're reading them.

 

 **[Mettaton:** You're kidding, right? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Don't leave me like this. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** You have, haven't you? You've actually gone. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** You sneaky little tease. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** I'll get you back, though, darling. **]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[Mettaton:** Now listen to how high my voice can go. **]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[Mettaton:** ...Ten whole minutes. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** I even sang for you, sweetheart. In underwear. That's devotion. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** pls its been ten minutes im lonely and cold **]**

 **[You:** get a blanket then you panty-wearing hotbot **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Oh! You're here!  <3 **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Did you watch the videos? **]**

 

No, you haven't, but you'll do that as soon as you disentangle your earphones from their spaghetti-like state. How did they even get like that, anyway? Are all earphones just designed to piss people off by playing jump rope with each other as soon as they're pushed into your pocket?

You load the first video. It's angled the same way as his selfie, with him looking up and back into the camera and his hand movements visible over his body while he sings. It's shaky as he motions and gets into his singing, but that's to be expected, and the buttery smooth tone of his voice excuses it. You missed that familiar EX voice, and you drink in all ten seconds of the video like you did with the glass of Blood and Glitter.

You know you recognise [the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yagd1uPw0_8), but you don't think you can name it right now. You're too busy gawping at the lyrics that he'd unabashedly decided to sing. 'Is it still me that makes you sweat? / Am I who you think about in bed?' are definitely _not_ the kind of lyrics you want to have stuck in your head while you're trying to work.

The rest of the videos are more ten-second continuations, with him managing to get through the first few verses up to the main chorus, even hitting the high note on 'faster, faster'. You'd never actually...watched Mettaton perform. You'd watched his shows, sure, but never looked up his concerts and gigs online and never taken the time to listen to his music. You should probably do that.

But you swear to god, if you ever hear him sing 'I've got more wit / A better kiss / A hotter touch / A better fuck' again with that little breath ending the last word, you'll be all over him like a dog to a bone. Finally, the weight of all those repressed feelings hang in the air, the understanding of all the girls (and guys) going crazy for him washing over you, and you've never felt better.

You've also never felt more inappropriately turned on at work, but whatever.

 

 **[You:** i did **]**

 **[Mettaton:** And...? **]**

 **[You:** what do you want me to say? **]**

 **[You:** it was wonderful 10/10 just got off there and then **]**

 **[Mettaton:** That wouldn't be the first time I've heard that. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** But no, I meant just my singing in general. I'm a little rusty, if you'll excuse the terrible pun. I haven't done a performance in a while. **]**

 **[You:** no omg, you sound great! **]**

 **[You:** honestly, really good **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Why, thank you, darling. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** I hit a high note for you. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** That means I like you. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Did you know I recorded that twelve times to get it right? My voice doesn't go that high sometimes. **]**

 **[You:** please tell me you saved the bloopers. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** One or two. Here. **]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

**[1 new video message from Mettaton]**

 

You should teach Mettaton to count sometime. Three is not one nor two.

The first video is short. You can tell he's close to hitting the note but it cracks (read: it glitches the fuck out, as you'd expect the robo-equivalent of voice breaking is) and he winces at himself before the video cuts off.

The second is slightly longer. He doesn't get the right tone at all at the start and gets about a second into the note before laughing. You missed that laugh, too. His calculator form one got irritating after a while, but you didn't have the heart to complain since he couldn't help it. He says "cut, on take four of many" before laughing again, eyes sparkling and a Cheshire Cat-esque grin appearing on his upside-down face just as the video cuts out.

The third-

 

 **[Mettaton:** WAIT, HAVE YOU OPENED THE THIRD ONE YET **]**

 **[You:** i was just about to. why **]**

 **[Mettaton:** I didn't mean to send it. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** But I guess there's no stopping you now, so go ahead. **]**

You open the third with some hesitation. Still the same angle, pose, everything as the other two, but this time he's ever so slightly off-key on the 'faster, faster'. He sings it, then pauses, narrowing his eyes and looking away from the camera. They return to give a bored and half-lidded look at the lens with a slow blink and a long, drawn-out _'fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck'_.

It's surprisingly endearing to hear Mettaton swear; possibly because he doesn't do it often and is reasonably far from having a vulgar vocabulary, but whatever reason it is, it makes you smile anyway. Thinking about it, hearing _anything_ coming from Mettaton's mouth is endearing, because you're too far gone in this little crush for his voice to not make you grin whenever you hear it.

 

 **[You:** you know when you call out people for swearing in your essays on tv? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** For not being family-friendly? **]**

 **[You:** yea **]**

 **[You:** none of that video was family -friendly either. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Naturally. I'm also not a very family-friendly person offstage, as you've probably found out. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Innuendos and foul mouthed language abound. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Plus, my late-night shows are never particularly safe for children. **]**

 

You can't say you've ever cared enough to watch them, but, like his live shows, you should probably make more of an attempt to now that you know him personally.

 

 **[You:** grrrr now i wanna see u **]**

 **[You:** you're free tomorrow, right? **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Oh, honey, I'm at dance rehearsals again. **]**

 **[You:** :(( **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Although I'm sure my choreographer won't mind if you tag along to watch. The only thing I have to warn you of is that I can't have all of my attention on you. I actually have to practice. **]**

 **[You:** that's cool. **]**

 **[You:** it'll be fun watching your dancing anyway! **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Oh, good! So long as you're not too bothered by that, then it's fine. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Meet me at my apartment at noon tomorrow, then. We'll walk from there. **]**

 **[Mettaton:** <3! **]**

 

You're not sure why he sends the heart, but you're glad he did and it makes you smile all the same. When you eventually return to behind the counter, both your coworker and Burgerpants eye you up.

"What?" you ask nonchalantly, as if it wasn't obvious what they're asking about.

"He had a lot to say," Burgerpants comments, and it's more of a statement than a question.

"Uh, yeah."

"Well, _what?"_ your coworker presses.

"Nothing! I'm just going to his dance rehearsals tomorrow. That's all."

"Why did you need headphones?"

"Because he sent a video...?"

"What of?" both of them say in unison, quickly turning to look at each other with a smile. They've actually become pretty fast friends, and have taken a mutual liking to each other. Burgerpants seems a lot lighter, anyway, but of course they're good enough friends to try to pry into your love life together.

"He sang! That's all!"

"You're gettin' real defensive, little buddy."

"Because-" You let out a breathy laugh of exasperation. "Because you're both convinced that something just happened that I need to tell you about, maybe? Nothing happened. He just texted me. A lot. Seriously, you can leave it alone now."

With an exchange of an 'oh, really?' look, they both agree to drop the issue.

You're not looking forward to the shift after the rehearsal.

 

\---

 

You unashamedly walk hand-in-hand with Mettaton to his rehearsal studio. He doesn't seem fazed by it either, but you're still sure his fans are going at high power for the whole of the walk there.

You don't remember exactly what you've talked about once you reach the place, though. It was kind of a whole lot of random conversation, flirting, and puns. Just how you like it.

You're really warming to Mettaton, and you can tell he likes you too. You're not dating, you know you're not, but at least you can kid yourself that you are in between his latest one night stand and his next date. The in between that has his arm around your waist, his lips against your skin, and his hands tracing hearts on your body while you sleep.

You've already fallen for this robot, and you know he doesn't want to help you get back up.

 

\---

 

With your coat scrunched on the floor, Mett's hot pink water bottle next to you, and your phone ready to record anything you deem funny or impressive enough to make it to your Facebook, you sit and watch as Mettaton does his warm-up stretches. Him and his choreographer chat in a friendly way, bouncing off each other like they've been friends for years. They probably have, but you notice that only one remotely flirtatious comment is sent her way, and she just sticks her tongue out at it.

She's about your height, a pale pink cat with a bowler hat and a black loose vest top. She gives you a warm smile of acknowledgement, and you return it while Mett leans at the waist to touch his toes and- oh my god, no, he has some hella good thigh muscles going on.

Considering his mostly metallic status, he's fairly flexible and it's actually quite impressive to see him contort himself in all sorts of ways. He's especially good at the splits, although he needs to work on his balance and standing back up, as there's a whole lot of stumbling when he tries to continue straight from the splits in heeled boots.

"Alright, warm-up done and done. Good job, Mettaton," the cat cheered, holding up her paw for a high-five. He delivers, and then she throws you a thumbs-up. "So I think today we should just work on perfecting the routine rather than trying to add the last part now. I know you probably have somewhere to be so I'll try not to keep you long."

"Oh, no, my little companion is just fine." He tilts his head back to look at you instead of just turning, which makes you laugh. He smiles. "Isn't that right, darling?"

You nod. "Yeah. Besides, I've got a pretty sweet-ass view going on here," you say, making a framing motion with your fingers. You notice that Mettaton gives you a glimmer of a wink before standing normally again.

"A sweet-ass view or a sweet _ass_ view?" the cat laughs. You really did not mean to make that joke. She plods over to the stereo to start playing the music. The intro fades in, and you assume this would be the part where the audience cheers and he basks in it, because the choreographer just talks over it. "As we practiced, Metta. A-one, two three four-"

The singing begins, and Mettaton launches straight into the dance while the cat stays in one spot and gives vague gestures, just in case he forgets. It doesn't look like he will. His movements are fluid and clearly very well-rehearsed, and for the most part he keeps his focus straight ahead, giving himself bedroom eyes in the studio mirror like you assume he would do with the audience. You're amazed at how much confidence he has in himself now that he's most humanoid and not a ghost - although you didn't know him back then, so you'll just have to go on his word that he hated himself.

The song fades a little to the bridge before the final chorus, and as his movements slow to stay with the pace, you catch his eye in the mirror. He winks, and you see him try to maintain eye contact throughout the rest of the song. His smile is a lot wider while he does - probably because he's so determined to impress you that he grins at even the slightest stumble - and for the finishing pose, he looks himself up and down in the mirror to make sure he looks fine. And then, he looks back at you, his hair a mess and his breathing a little faster and alright, yeah, he looks kinda hot with that open-mouthed, panting smirk and that little head tilt backwards while he looks at you and his tight bodysuit is doing your increasing attraction to him _absolutely no favours whatsoever._

You cross your legs, and he winks again before his choreographer starts to clap.

"Even better than the last time, Metta! Good job. You'll definitely be okay for Saturday's performance," she beams. "We can take it easy now that I know you have it down."

"Ah, good. Could I just-..." He cuts himself off and turns to beckon to you. "Come on here, sweetheart. Let's try something."

You hesitantly stand up, bringing his bottle over. You do this out of kindness, but you're still not entirely sure why he's short of breath, because as far as you're aware, he doesn't even need to breathe. He laughs kindheartedly.

"Oh, you're cute. I wouldn't drink that, though, darling. It's probably a little bit...oily, for your tastes."

You set it down, thanking everything that you didn't try and take a drink earlier on, while he was dancing. "So why am I here?"

"Why do you think?"

"I literally don't know. That's why I'm asking."

"I'm going to teach you some of my dance, of course!"

"You could pay me an entire year's earnings, Mett, and I still wouldn't be on your show."

He pouts. "I wasn't trying to convince you of it anyway, my lovely, but at least now I know your stance on that. Anyway, you'll have to stretch first. All good dance professionals do."

"Mett, I don't even-"

"I'm just gonna go 'n grab a coffee, okay?" the choreographer interrupts, picking up a sheet of paper and gesturing towards the door. You're close enough now to read the lanyard that she untucks from her vest - her name is Marissa, and she's head of dance performances, apparently. "Keep practicing. We're gonna get this completely nailed down."

She exits the room rather abruptly, and you pass it off as her just having somewhere to be...after she gets her coffee. You continue what you were saying. "I don't even know what stretches I _should_ be doing."

"Oh, no, I'll help you with those." He straightens one leg out in front of him, and leans forward to reach his toes. "Try this."

"Like this?" It's easy enough for you to do, but of course he finds a flaw with it.

"Straighten your leg a little more, darling. You need them to be fully ready for dancing." He reaches across and puts his hand on the top of your thigh to press it down, and you let out a whimper.

"Ow."

"Sorry. But you're there now," he says. He doesn't immediately remove his hand - instead he slowly lets it drag off your leg, aiming for as much contact as possible. You give him a look, and you swear you see his smile get a little wider. "This next one's more for you, though. My arms don't really need much warming up."

He brings his arm across his chest and presses where his upper arm would be back against his chest with his wrist. This one is relatively normal, and you do it with ease. Then he stands in front of you, completely dropping _his_ stretch.

"Oh, darling, it's wrong again. You need a little..." He slowly presses his hand against your elbow, pushing the rest of your arm closer and closer until it's against your throat. It just ever so slightly makes your breath catch, even more so when he rests his hand on your waist and trails it down to your hip. "...help."

You don't even reply to him. You're too busy looking hungrily at the little fangs peeking over his tongue in his open-mouthed smile, and too busy thinking about how badly you want them on your throat.

He suddenly moves his hands away from you with his usual cheery expression plastered on his face. "Now onto the next one!"

He cheats a little with this one - instead of bending normally at the waist to reach down and touch his toes, he just bends as far as he can and then extends his noodle-y arms the rest of the way. You've always just been that little bit off being able to touch your toes, but you make a valiant effort, staying conscious of how much your butt is stuck in the air. Mett is also conscious of this, and you mentally prepare yourself for more of his 'help'.

"You really can't touch your toes?"

"No."

"Hm." He positions himself behind you, seemingly examining your figure. You glance at him in the mirror, and then he leans slightly over you, extending his arms down the sides of your own and holding your wrists to move them a little downwards. "Hmmmmm."

"M-Mett-"

"What is it, sweetheart?

"You're...real close to me."

"I'd say I'm more than close, darling. I'm literally right against you right now," he says, sliding his hands down your thighs independently of your hands. "Riiiiight up against you. Nearly every part of me is against nearly every part of you." You tilt your head down so you don't have to look in the mirror and let out a little breath that you'd been holding in, and he notices.

 "Oh, you like this, don't you?"

"M-mm."

"And _all_ I'm trying to do is help you with your stretches, darling." Feeling a hand under your chin, you let your head be guided up by it, forcing you to look in the mirror again. You can see his other hand creeping to your inner thigh, his head resting on your shoulder and his fingers splayed out across your throat to hold your head up. "But... _chin up._ You're getting awfully flustered for no good reason."

You have a perfectly valid reason. The fact that his hand is slowly moving to your crotch, his touch feeling fainter and fainter as he trails his fingers across you, is a very good reason, you think. He gives you a smirk in the mirror before gently pressing his lips to the side of your neck, starting to suck hard enough for you to be able to feel his fangs.

"You want this, don't you?"

His commands in the form of breathy questions are what get you. You nod as best you can with his hand at your throat, and he lets a dark chuckle escape his lips, hot air hitting your skin. His hand teasingly rubs at the front of your crotch, and you give a small moan in the form of a breathy whimper. He seems to like that, and strokes you a little faster and a little harder, enough to warrant another moan from you.

His fangs nip at your neck, and it's all going fine until you hear a door shut down the corridor and footsteps getting increasingly louder. He moves his hand, much to your dismay, but keeps his hand on your throat until the very last second.

"My apartment. Tonight. I insist," he whispers before letting go of you completely and feigning ignorance as Marissa returns, a takeout coffee cup in han- _paw_. "That's how you do it, darling! I must say, you're getting better at these stretches."

He's taken a step back from you, so Marissa doesn't have a clue about what happened. "You're still warming up? You must really not exercise," she says half-jokingly to you.

You stand upright again. "Yeah, I- I really don't."

"You okay? You're a little red."

"I was just- I just had my head down for a while," you stutter, making a twirling motion around your head with your index finger. "Blood rush. Just a little blood rush to the head, that's all."

"Alrighty. As long as you're okay."

You're more than okay. Mettaton knows this, you know this, and you presume that Marissa thinks you're happy, too. Mettaton gives you another sly wink before readying himself for another rehearsal, and you return to your little coat pile.

For the next hour, all you focus on is his ass, and his legs, and the way he gives you looks through the mirror when Marissa isn't watching. He bites his lip, sticks his tongue out, even pulls his lip down with a manicured nail when he runs it up the side of his face.

 (Which, to his credit, was part of the routine, but you're fairly sure the obscene o-faces weren't.)

(Either way, you're glad he's good at improvising.)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more voice headcanons somehow??? you better have clicked on that link because brendon urie's voice is pretty much what i think ex's singing voice sounds like and also c'mon it's mood music
> 
> [and also none of this dance would leave my head when writing the first bit of the rehearsal scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuXIo_xTmto)
> 
> ooh! and! some people on tumblr asked what music i listen to when writing, so i'm working on a shitty 8tracks compilation playlist with all of the particular songs i used for specific scenes which i'll be putting the link up to in the next chapter!
> 
> tumblr (send me shit, i love talking to you guys omg): [polarise.co.vu](polarise.co.vu)


	9. you said you were done. well, how done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, so heads up: there is sex in this chapter, and it's a fair bit heavier than chap 2 or the end of the last chapter; you're more than welcome to skip it if it's really not your thing, but it's being used as a plot device, so it bears more relevance than you might expect to what's going to happen. if you do skip it, however, some of the dialogue from this point on will seem out of place (since, y'know, if they don't do the do in your reading and then suddenly they mention it, it's a little confusing). i just wanted to get that out of the way in case people started reading something they might not want to!
> 
> but also this is rated m idk what you were expecting
> 
> and yes, the sex is gender-neutral, still! forgive it for sounding forced in some places due to the overuse of any body part descriptor that doesn't directly relate to specific genitalia. a lot of it is just 'against you' or 'on you' rather than detailing parts, though
> 
> title is from ["you wrote 'don't forget' on your arm"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wE8eOCMu7A) by [flatsound](http://www.flatsound.org/)! v v good artist, i recommend you listen to him, honestly. his songs/spoken word parts might also be appropriate for the very later parts too...

 

That afternoon, you had learned four things.

One: Mettaton's latest dance routine. It was fast-paced, bouncy, and fun, and it didn't take you long once you secured the repetitive chorus parts and got the hang of how the verse parts went. You'd even admit to yourself that you both looked pretty fucking cool doing that synchronised dance in the mirror together, and you're the most stubborn when it comes to accepting anything. 

Two: that Mettaton apparently has more followers than sense, even on the surface. He'd taken a mirror selfie of the both of you and uploaded it to Instagram with the caption 'Rehearsals are more fun with friends ;)' and it got around a thousand likes in ten minutes. He stopped checking it after that, so you can only assume that it has racked up hundreds of thousands by now.

Three: that Mettaton lights up when he needs to. You already sort of knew about that from your not-date at the park, but it was a pleasant surprise to see random LEDs coming to life on him as soon as you thought out loud about how dark it gets at early hours, even in winter. It was barely five PM and it was darker than your edgy DeviantArt OCs from when you were twelve.

The fourth thing you had learned was how experienced Mettaton is at knowing what people want from him. This shouldn't have been much of a surprise - you're his, what, 1500th notch? - but still, the fact that he knows exactly what you want, how you want it, where you want it, and what you want him to do catches you off-guard. You honestly expected him to be a little more of a...diva, you guess? Expected him to insist that you make him feel good as your top priority. For all you know, he might be like that with others, with the hundreds of one-night-stands he's accumulated in the past year that he's been on the surface, but right now, you wouldn't even be able to tell if he was like that. Right now, he's focused on you, and right now, his charms are fucking working.

"Are we really going to ffff-fuck on the couch?" you had asked, too breathily for your own liking, as he sat over you like you sat over him back when you'd nearly done this. Remember? When he said you owed him for the pizza? Except that time, you weren't already down to your underwear.

"Not unless you want to," he had responded, and took your head shake as a 'no'. He'd lifted you up and carried you effortlessly to his bedroom (he's walking slowly on purpose, and you know it), and you have to take a moment to admire it before returning to the situation.

A four-poster bed with a chiffon canopy surrounding it, currently unlit fairy lights twisting around the supports and...uh, a strangely average black duvet and pink pillowcases. Every other piece of furniture is modern and chic, but his sheets look too ordinary to be his. He catches you looking curiously at them.

"Is there a problem, sweetheart?"

"I was expecting, like, satin or silk sheets or something. The colour fits you, but not- ...I don't know, you just seem like the kinda guy to have silk sheets."

"Oh, we _do_ have expensive tastes," he teases, feigning offence. "No, really, these are just more comfortable. I'm the only one sleeping in them, after all. Well, 'sleeping'," he repeats after a pause, signing quotation marks around 'sleeping'.

 You're about to ask if literally nobody stays the night when he has his little encounters, but he cuts you off by leaning down over you and pressing his lips against your neck, grazing his fangs across your skin just like how he did at his rehearsal. The feeling of it makes you push out another breath in place of your words and tilt your neck to one side for him to cover more area. He removes his mouth with a little flick of his tongue (much to your frustration) in order to speak.

"Eager much, darling?" he purrs. "What is it that you want?"

"You know."

"Do I?"

"What, didn't I make it obvious enou- hhhhhh, okay, okay." You cut off your sentence as his hand trails along your side and down to your thigh, although you're mostly jumping at how cold his hands are through your clothes. Downsides of being made of metal, you suppose, but you want the same warm hands back that held yours the first time you delivered his pizza.

...That sounded like a euphemism. You'd fucking deliver _his_ pizza all across town in more ways than one.

"No. Unless you spell it out-..." His voice ends up much closer to your ear than before, "-or make me have to force it out of you, I won't be able to tell, sweetheart."

God, he's working it.

"F-fuck me," you whine, glad that his face is by your neck so you don't have to look at him. "Just...make me feel special."

"What a sweet request," he says, pawing at your thigh again and moving just that little bit further upwards. "With the way you're asking, I almost don't want to hear you beg for it. Almost."

"So is that you asking me to beg?"

"It was more of a statement, really, albeit slightly hidden in undertones."

You shake your head. "I can't. I'm all-...like, flustered enough as it is. Let's just stay vanilla for now."

"As you so wish, my darling," he says with a warm smile before kneading at your crotch again. You're reminded of his rehearsal, and you wonder how far he would've gone if Marissa hadn't come back. "Is this okay?"

"Y-yes, that's- nghh, that's good."

He gives you a little hum of approval and keeps the same rhythm with his fingers, stroking you through your underwear. You give _him_ a hum of approval, and catching on, he sends one back, although it sounds more like a muffled moan and you know that's intentional. You know he wants you to copy him.

So you do. A little groan, only a quarter forced, leaves your lips, and he actually pauses before smiling again.

"Oh, that was gorgeous. _You're_ gorgeous," he says, his fans whirring louder and louder. His hands have slowed, to your disappointment, and now his fingers trail across the waistband of your undergarments. You didn't really come out with the intention of being fucked by a robot, otherwise you probably would've picked out your best pair. "May I, darling?"

"Depends what you're ah-asking."

He chews on his lip while he thinks. "May I have the honour of seeing what beautiful little secrets you're hiding underneath, so that I may then go onto cherish and...do something to it?" You're about to reply before he cuts you off and continues. "Or, the alternative, more crude version: let me make you moan for me, please."

"Both are a yes," you breathe, and to your surprise his hands move completely away and up to your knees. His head also leaves its position above your shoulder, and he lowers it. And lowers it some more. And more. Aaaaand now he's at your underwear.

He gives your stomach a soft kiss. "Such a cute little tummy," he chuckles, and you're fairly sure you could walk out of here with more self-esteem than you did when you arrived. Banging Mettaton could do wonders for your confidence.

His teeth latch onto the top of your underwear and start to slide them down. As hot as it is, he has to use his hands to get them properly past your thighs, which is fine, because you know everything can't be as smooth and as choreographed as porn, but he catches you laughing. He tries to smile up at you with his teeth still caught on the fabric at your knees, which makes you laugh even more.

"What? What ish it, shweetheart?" he tries to say, his speaking mostly muffled.

"Nothing. You just look really cute doing that. And the fact that- that you, like, didn't expect that it wouldn't go completely smoothly and have to use your hands on the sly just made me giggle."

Whoops, there go the fans again. They're at such a high power now that it makes his hands vibrate ever so slightly, and you squirm at the sensation of them against your skin. Wonder what they'd be like-

You let out a sudden moan. While you were distracted, he'd pressed his mouth to you, giving you a small kiss where you...well, not exactly _least,_ but you least expected it right at that specific time. With a little smirk, he presses his still-rumbling hands against your inner thighs, gently pushing your legs apart some more so you wouldn't crush his head in your squirming. Of which you're doing a lot of right now, because Mettaton knows exactly how to use his tongue, how to ever so slightly press his lips to you and suck _just that little bit more_ to make you writhe underneath him.

He moves his head back, and your next moan becomes one that's a mixture of irritation and pleasure. He notices and keeps stroking at you while he talks.

"Look at me."

"It's embarrass-ssing."

" _I_ can still see _you_ though, darling. It makes no difference."

"It does. Making eye contact is weird because you're d-doing- you're _doing what you're doing_ and my eyes keep flickering anyway and-"

"You're actually adorable, you know that? The hottest thing I've seen this side of the mirror," he says with a glint in his eye when you glance down at him. His eyes are still half-lidded, and he bats his eyelashes at you. "This is the most fun I've had in a long while, my lovely. This... _is_ alright with you, isn't it?"

"It's more than okay. You're...really good at this."

"I have a lot of experience," he says simply, and you wish he hadn't. You don't want to be reminded of how you're just one in a line of many.

But, uh, maybe you can forgive that almost as soon as you thought of it because his mouth returns to where you need it most, and your breath catches on the beginnings of a whimper as he laps at you, slowly sliding long licks up and down you.

He's good at what he's doing. He really is. You can't deny that, and you're aware of how many chances he's had to practice this and test it out, but somehow he seems to know exactly what works for you, alternating between lightly sucking at your skin and pressing his tongue flat against you to cover more area at one. Your toes curl, your hands gripping at the (cotton) sheets underneath you as he brings you closer and closer and closer-

And then he moves away.

Your desperate little pants and moans are abruptly cut off as you look at him. "N-no, you-"

"'No' what, my darling?"

"You can't just stop," you whine, trying to wrap your legs around him and bring him closer again. He deflects your advances and pins you down by your ankles, gently scratching at your leg while he sits back on his knees. 

"I can, and I did."

"Why?"

"I love watching you squirm." In response, you shift your hips a little. "Look at you. You know you want me."

"That's no secret. Just- _please_."

"Remember the last time we were in a situation like this, sweetheart? I'm in a good mind to just leave you like this. Leave you to finish yourself off to the thought of me."

He wouldn't...would he? He's already said that he's not angry about you wanting to stop, and maybe if he is you shouldn't be doing this still. It's your choice to stop, and-

His fingers rub you faster than before while he smirks down at you. "But I won't, because I'm not that much of a jerk."

"Mmh-"

"Alright, maybe I am, sometimes. But! You can't be a star without being a little bit of a diva, can you, darling?"

"Y-yes." You're not sure if it was a reply or a moan, but he smiles at it anyway.

"Are you disagreeing with me?"

"Yes- fucking _yesss_ , I am, now just k-keep going."

"And are you telling me what to do?"

You can't meet his gaze, and throw your head back while his nails drag down your leg teasingly. "For fuck's sake, I am, I ssswear- _ahaaahh, fuck, Mettaton,_ _please_ -"

His mouth returns, and for the next few moments you find yourself unable to say anything other than his name and a few choked swear words while he finishes you off, looking up at you almost lovingly while his hands grip at your ankles to keep your writhing body under control. He's strong enough to keep his head against you even while you move, and he doesn't slow down his licking until your voice starts to quieten, your moans starting to falter as you hit the comedown. He finishes lapping up your juices, his own dripping from his heart and trailing down him to leave little pink stains on the sheets; you can't even open your eyes to look at him while he does, instead keeping your head back against the mattress.

You can't see his pupils turn to small hearts, and you can't hear his little sigh when he kisses your skin tenderly one last time before sucking at the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. He then moves back up your body, his lips trailing up your neck until they reach your cheek, and one hand returns to your waist protectively.

"So? Do you feel special now, gorgeous?" he purrs, the little low tone of his voice making you even more flustered despite what you've just done. Despite the fucking sin that you've just experienced. Good lord, you have absolutely no shame at this point.

"Yes," you smile, grabbing at whatever part of him is closest to you. His arm, apparently. You pull him closer.

"I'd kiss you, but-"

"I really don't want to taste myself, thanks."

He chuckles, tracing a little heart on your skin absentmindedly. His hands are warmer now, although you didn't exactly notice while he was going to town on your nether regions. You honestly can't say that they were the focus of your last fifteen minutes.

You enjoy his company for the next however-long. He coils his arms around you, resting at your side so he doesn't crush you with his weight. You can't see, but he watches you contentedly, taking in every little imperfection on your skin - the way your lips move with every breath, the way your nose twitches before a long sigh, the way your eyelids flutter shut and then reopen once you realise where you are.

"Well, this has certainly been quite the enjoyable experience. One I'd definitely like to repeat. But, uh-..." He shifts his arms from around you, and it takes you a couple of seconds to take in the fact that he's slid off the bed. You try to focus your eyes on him, and see that he's standing at his wardrobe. "-...I'm afraid I must take my leave, darling."

 "Yea- wait, what?"

He turns to look at you with a happy little smile. "I have another date, my lovely! Isn't that exciting?"

It doesn't quite process at first. The words don't go through your head right - instead, they bounce around and shatter everything kept in your little brain office, smashing glasses and screens and not computing at all.

"You're...going on another date?"

"Yes! I know, I'm hoping it goes better than the last one, too."

 "...Are you _fucking_ serious?" You just look at him. His smile is so genuine, so bright, yet it hurts so much to look at. He looks to one side, then back at you with a little shake of his head, like he doesn't quite get your point. "You mean to tell me that you just had sex with me and now you're going off to spend the night with someone else?"

"When you put it like that-"

"Mettaton, no matter how you put it, that's fucking-...you said you weren't that much of a jerk when you weren't going to let me finish, but this is ten times worse. A hundred times worse."

His facial expression looks like you just slapped him. Kicked him, punched him, whatever. It wouldn't be as bad as what he's doing.

You slide off the bed without another word and head into the living area to fetch the rest of your clothes, tears pricking your eyes as you scoop them up and pull them on hastily. Mettaton comes out from the other room. "Darling, listen-"

"No! Do you actually not realise how shitty a thing that is to do to someone? Fuck them and then immediately leave for a date with someone else? You _actually_ think that's perfectly fine?"

"It's no different to what I've done all my life."

"But I thought _I_ was different! I thought maybe you liked me for _me_ , not just for whether I'm a challenge to get into bed. I'm helping you to date other people and get your shit together but _this_ \- this _isn't_ part of the deal."

"I'm sorry, I-"

"You're not, though." You swallow, your voice wavering. Don't break now. Don't break down. You need to stay strong on this one. "...You're not. You don't care, do you? All I ever was was your latest one-night-stand. Makes me think you never really cared about our dates or the time we spent after your last date went fucking _horrifically_ or when you let me see underneath your face plate or _anything_. None of that actually matters, does it? _Does it?"_

"Of course it does. I care about you, sweetheart."

"No. Fuck off. You don't get to do all this and still call me the same pet names you use on everyone else. Are you going to stand there and pretend to care? Gonna stand there and lie to my face about caring about whether I'm happy or not?"

"Were you, or were you _not_ just made _very_ happy?" he says, his voice raising ever so slightly and developing a slight edge.

"So what if I was? I wanted to. You wanted to. _I_ wanted to because I thought you actually might've at least asked me out or something after, or at the very least _shown that you liked me for more than just sex appeal."_

"I've put up with that for a very, _very_ long time, _darling_. People seeing me as an object. Not as a person."

"Then you should know better than to treat someone else like that, shouldn't you?"

You can tell that your words hit him like a bullet, and he draws in a sharp intake of breath through his nose, folding his arms and leaning against the wall with one shoulder. He doesn't meet your eyeline, despite you burning holes into him with your glare. "...I wasn't treating you like that. I do like you. I thought you knew this."

"Time to fucking show it, then."

"I am! What the _hell_ do you think _that_ was, darling? I'm showing it as best I can. I'm a _robot_. We've been through this. I don't have the same thought processes as you, nor do I possess the same emotional capabilities. You know this."

"And _you_ know that I never wanted to be someone else to just chalk up on the board. I always knew deep down that you'd get sick of me once you had this."

"It was just inconvenient timing. I-"

" _Bullshit."_

He throws one hand out in exasperation. "Fine. I won't go on the date. Would that make you happy?"

"It's not even about that anymore. Not solely, anyway. I knew you'd end up not caring after a while. I always knew. Don't pretend you'd cancel it on my command under the guise that it would 'make me happy'. Don't you dare fucking try to _pacify_ me."

"Listen-"

"No. You know what?" You pick up your coat, not bothering to put it on for the sake of making a quick exit. You check that you have your phone. "Don't call me. Don't call me _at all._ Don't text, don't phone, don't even order pizza, because I won't fucking deliver it. I never wanted to be your one-night-stand. If you _really_ cared about me, you'd leave me the _fuck_ alone from this point on."

It takes you a few seconds to figure out the latch on his door, but once you unlock it, you practically rip the door open, letting it slam behind you loud enough for the rest of the apartment building to hear. You're past the point of caring.

 

\---

 

Snow falls in a flurry outside the pizza shop window as you pass it, not even looking inside for your coworkers. You're headed straight home, where the cold can eat you alive, where your own loneliness can melt your insides like a lit candle. Ironically enough, that would still be hotter, but not as hot as the sting of tears in your eyes, and then how they freeze against your face in a bittersweet reminder of how empty you feel.

 

\---

 

The purple marks on your shoulders taunt you from your reflection in the mirror.

You rub and scratch them until your shoulders are a flowerbed of fuchsias.

They refuse to leave.

 

\---

 

Half of you wants Mettaton's arms back around you to keep you warm, but the other half wants to keep him far, far away from you. The halves want his lips against your skin and his makeup smeared to the point of ugliness, respectively. The halves remember the velvety tone of his voice in your ear, telling you things will be fine, and his voice as a screeching pain, drilling through you, reminding you who he is, who you are for wanting him. For thinking that you could be close to him.

 

 **[You:** burgerpants hheres my address ok **]**

**[You shared your contact details with Burgerpants.]**

**[You:** please plaes come over i just need someien here **]**

 

There's no reply for a few minutes. Great. Another person who uses you for something then is willing to drop you once they get what they wanted. He has his job. He's under no obligation to keep talking to you.

You shouldn't say that. You can't take this out on Burgerpants.

 

 **[Burgerpants:** uh sure buddy. You doing ok? **]**

 **[Burgerpants:** u dont sound it. **]**

 **[Burgerpants:** Ill be over soon ok? Stay warm and safe and whatever **]**

 

How long will it be before you turn into total strangers?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY
> 
> what if i just ended it here can you imagine the uproar omg
> 
> but nah i'm not that mean. also shoutout if you noticed the little sentence from the very first chapter go you
> 
> maHOOSIVE shoutouts to [despaiirz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/despaiirz/)/[w-rriorgoddess](w-rriorgoddess.tumblr.com) and [koalolive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Koalolive/)/[demisexualmettaton](demisexualmettaton.tumblr.com) for being wonderful people and putting up with my complaining about writing aha <333
> 
> tumblr: [polarise.co.vu](polarise.co.vu)


	10. in which there is an orange cat and a yellow lizard and something breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alt title: in which i end up warming to bp more than mettaton
> 
> this is a lil shorter than the others and also?? this was really hard to write and i kept getting distracted bye

  

Burgerpants arrives in the same get-up he had on when you last saw him, and you realise that you've only ever seen him in this and his work uniform. He just acknowledges you with a nod when you answer the door, cheeks stained with tears and no change in clothes from when you left Mettaton's. You're freezing, but you're already too numb to care about getting hypothermia in your own apartment. You step aside for Burgerpants, and he comes in, paws in pockets.

"'S fucking freezing in here, little buddy. Turn your heating up."

"It's broken," you mutter, and his ears twitch as he turns around to hear your response.

"Ah. Right."

He lets you shut the door and return to your pile of blankets, waiting as you offer one along with the empty space next to you on the couch. When he sits down and you don't even make conversation, instead curling up with your head on the armrest and your knees tucked up to your chest, he says,  "you're really not okay, are you, kiddo?"

You don't even have to respond, either with words or a head shake. You don't know if he knows what happened, but you assume that he wouldn't, since it had barely been an hour since you left Mettaton's and you don't expect that he has frequent contact with him. He must live fairly close to you, you realise, if he was able to get here so fast.

The thought of whether Mettaton is okay crosses your mind. You expel it just as fast as it arrived.

"Yeah. No. Didn't think so. Did, um...did somethin' happen with Mettaton?"

You tilt your head to look at him, not caring about how unattractive an angle he's witnessing you from. "...How d-do you know?"

"Because I know you care a lot about him, and if something's happened to make you _this_ upset, it's bound to be that." He meets your eyes, and you don't feel uncomfortable, surprisingly. "Am I wrong?"

"No, you're n-not, it's just-"

"And also because he just texted me asking to make sure that you were okay. Literally seconds before I got to your door."

What. No. He doesn't...care? Does he? No?

You slowly shift yourself to sit up. "What-...what did he say?"

"The messages were pretty scrambled and frantic. Never seen the guy make a typo before. They were just saying 'I need a favour' and then him asking me to drop in and make sure that you're doing fine. He even sent your address so I could get here, but I guess he didn't know I already had it."

"I'm very not f-fine," is all you say, and he nods.

"I don't know what happened, obviously, but it must've been pretty bad. D'you wanna talk about it, or...?"

"We did...stuff," you say hesitantly, now breaking eye contact and looking literally anywhere else to avoid it, "and then he said he had to leave to go on a date. With someone else."

Burgerpants' face screws up, and you can tell that he's angry for you. "What the fuck? That's so typical of him. I _have_ got the right idea of what 'stuff' means though, right?" You nod. "Yeah, sorry, little buddy. That's the kinda guy he is, though."

"Y-you're not helping."

"No, I know. Shit, I'm sorry, kid, I'm bad at this." He scratches the back of his neck, and notices your shivering. "Hey, you're freezin', aren'tcha?"

You don't reply, and he looks around for something. Probably a blanket, but logic should tell him that you've already taken all the ones in your apartment. He chews on his lip, little kitty fangs protruding slightly, and then shrugs before taking off his hoodie. "Y'know what, I can do without this. Here," he says, holding it out to hand it to you, and then rolling his eyes when you don't immediately take it. He leans over and wraps it around your shoulders, tucking any possible openings into your mess of blankets so that there was no chance of you getting colder.

"Mn'anks."

"I'm gonna guess that was a thanks."

"Yuh," you mumble, your mouth still slightly muffled by the fabric of his hoodie. You're not ungrateful in the slightest.

"So you know we had that deal? Where you'd get me an interview if I got deets on Mettaton?" he says suddenly, after a few more moments of silence.

Admittedly, you'd forgotten about that, seeing as it was made before you were as close as you already were to Mettaton, but at least _he_ remembered. He cares about you more than you thought. Another nod.

"Yeah. Alright. Want to cash in on that? I'll be your little back-n-forth messenger if you need to spill your guts to him. See if you two can work this out before it gets real bad."

"'S already real bad," you say, but sit up anyway, watching as he pulls out his phone. You're surprised that his paws can even work on a touch screen, but you guess they've been specially designed to accommodate monsters now. The phones, not his paws. Meanwhile your shitty phone turned itself off at anything below ten degrees and didn't respond at all to your gloves. Blatant humanphobia.

"Let's see if we can't fix what he fucked up."

 

\---

 

Burgerpants is lovely. You underestimated how nice he could be at first, but he helps you reword some of your bitter-sounding statements and doesn't try to tone down your anger, or push anything onto you. You know a few people who'd say 'well, it's your own fault for fucking him, you knew what he was like', but Burgerpants completely understands where you're coming from and even tries to make little jokes to lighten the mood. He's pretty shitty at actual comforting, but he's not a mushy sort of guy, you don't think.

Oh, and he totally lets you call him BP now. And he hugged you. He's great.

After an hour of near-constant messaging through Burgerpants, it seems like you've reached a truce with Mettaton. He won't apologise for having another date, since you'd agreed that you were only helping him in the first place, but he reluctantly admitted that he shouldn't have had sex with you immediately before without even telling you about his outing. You called him a dick for it, and his reply was the '¯\\_(ツ)_/¯' emoticon.

You're still mad at him. You have every right to be, and Burgerpants agrees. He doesn't make any attempt to leave until he's sure you'll be fine.

"If you need me, you have my number. I'm free tonight, so just call me if ya want a friendly chat or something," he says at the door.

"Thank you," you mutter, and he gives you a parting hug.

 

\---

 

A week had passed.

A week without so much as a call or text. A week without having soft kisses left on your cheek, your lips, your neck. A week without his hands on your hips, his arms around your waist. A week without little glimmers of smirks, slight winks, and forced robot jokes. A week without showy cackles and pretty little giggles.

It was a week that went by slowly, and it was the first week that you'd spent feeling lonelier than ever.

So when you wake up alone for the eighth day in a row, very little sunlight streaming through blinds and your duvet a crumpled mess hanging off the end of your bed, it hurts. When you make morning coffee and cereal and sit down on the same sofa as you'd slept on top of Mettaton on, it hurts. When you change into your oversized hoodie and gather all the blankets you can find, cuddling a pillow close, it fucking _hurts._

 BP had text you pretty much every day to make sure that you were still doing okay, and your coworker covered for the first few days since business was slow. It doesn't exactly surprise you when your phone rings, expecting it to be either of those two, but it displays an unknown caller ID.

You pick up reluctantly, voice dreary and worn out. "Who's this?"

"Is this- of c-course it is. Y-yeah."

The voice is high and nasally-sounding, and there's an obvious stutter whenever they speak. "Again I ask, who's this?"

"U-um. I'm the one who b-built Mettaton. Sorry to just...pop up like this, but I need to ask a favour- u-uh, since you know him best."

Alphys? Was that her name? Oh, no. She knows him best, not you. You're _especially_ not prepared to go along with her favour if it involves her robotic creation.

"Alphys, with all due respect, Mettaton and I aren't exactly on the best of terms. Or at any terms at all, actually. Can't you find someone else to do...whatever?"

"You're the one he t-trusts the most. Or, um, at least, he u-used to," she mumbles, talking so quietly you can barely hear her through the phone. Really? You wouldn't have expected that. "A-and I'm still working down here in the underground, so I c-can't be up there to do his repairs right now. I-"

"Why does he need repairs?"

"...Pardon?"

"Why does he need repairs?"

"O-oh. Um, it's just a check-up. Regular st-stuff. He just needs someone to do it, since it's way past due and he hasn't had it done since h-he went up to the surface."

"...What do I have to do?" you ask warily. You really didn't want to risk anything awkward whilst sorting him out, and you had a feeling that's what they want.

"Specifically? Take off his chest plate, u-um...just check on the cables, basically. I'll send a PDF file with the little g-guide, if you want."

Without you even having time to reply and say yes, that'd be great since Mettaton has so many unexpected functions that you fear getting him off while doing it, your phone buzzes with a text notification. How did she even get your number? 

"Thanks," you say.

"No problem. So, y-yeah, can you do it as soon as possible, please? I just really need those diagnostics back. When you plug him in, it'll s-send them straight to my computer. It's easy, really."

Neither of you speak for a moment. She's even more socially awkward than you, and the silence quickly becomes uncomfortable. "I'll try. I'll text you if there's any problems."

Immediately, there's a dial tone. She's red-buttoned you. Wonderful. She must've been really anxious to speak to you.

You open up the file and scroll through it on your phone. It doesn't look overly complicated, thank god, so hopefully you can just get it over with and leave. Normally the scattered little doodles would make you laugh, but you're obviously not in the best of moods, so you'll look at them properly later. You have a free day, as usual, so why not get this all out of the way as soon as possible so you can continue to brood and wallow in self-pity?

...That's probably not the best way to put it, but fuck it.

 

 **[You:** i'm coming over **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Are you sure you want to? **]**

 **[You:** alphys phoned and asked me to do a check up so **]**

 **[Mettaton:** Right. Well, see you soon, I guess. **]**

 

You miss the excitement in his texts. After a week had passed without Mettaton, even just texting him makes you feel lonely.

 

 ---

 

You turn up at Mettaton's apartment with a noticeable lack of effort in your appearance. He also seems that way, and forces a small smile at the door.

 "No pizza?" he jokes halfheartedly, immediately stepping to one side to let you pass. You don't even respond to the joke, and shrug your hoodie off, tossing it onto the sofa before turning back to him when he shut the door.

"I'm not staying. Just here to do what I need to," you deadpan, sounding awfully like you were about to assassinate him or something equally bad. It's then that you notice the lack of a glow at his waist, and your eyes flicker downwards.

His heart isn't as bright as usual, and sports a rather large crack through it. Not enough to completely break it, but it looks dangerously close to being...hurt? Is that the word? You look up at his eyes, and he looks tired. Worn out, even, like he hadn't recharged in a while, and you attribute that to the weakened soul.

You didn't...really...cause him that much pain when you left, right? He didn't care. He had his way and then left for a date, of which he hadn't even bothered to tell you about. He notices your eyeline directed at his heart, and shrugs a little before moving to sit down on the sofa. You're frozen for a moment, just looking at the space where he was stood before slowly turning to face him.

Remembering your truce, and your conversation with BP earlier, you let out a sigh.

"Let's see if we can't fix what we fucked up."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dramatic repeated lines for endings are my shit man
> 
> next chap's gonna be longer, i swear, i just hate writing filler chapters where the whole point is to get across that _literally nothing happens_
> 
> also this fic'll probably finish in around......seven or eight more chapters? without spoiling any of you, i have to write the making-up, another date, another big event, and the happy ending, soooo...
> 
> tumblr: polarise.co.vu, please feel free to yell at me for this update taking so long. i have no excuse other than i'm working on a fic with king mtt so hopefully tht makes up for it?


	11. you break up, you make up, and you're not sure when you'll wake up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god i'm sos orry it's been a whole month
> 
> i've been away for a lil bit (still am - nothing like publishing robot fluff while getting ready to snowboard) and i swear, future updates will take less time
> 
> as an apology, here's a a 5.1k word chapter! aka the longest single thing i've ever fucking wrote

 

At least Alphys is good at writing her own instruction manuals; otherwise you’d have been at a complete loss for what to do. The fact that you have written instructions only makes your confusion marginally smaller, but you’re going to power through it no matter what. You can see the tiredness in Mettaton’s eyes and the effort he’s putting into just moving from place to place, and you don’t want to drag anything out and hurt him even more. The mere sight of the weakened soul makes you a little nervous, because it’s damage that _you’ve_ done, and you dread to think what may have happened if you’d put off showing up for another week or so.

You don’t want to make this awkward, so you’re not going to mince your words, and you’re not going to react to any underlying innuendoes. “Can you just...kneel down _there_ , and I’ll work from the sofa.”

He does as he’s told without any argument or hesitation, kneeling down on the carpet in front of you as you position yourself on the sofa seat. He’s so tall that this is an optimal working point for you, but it also means that if you glance up from his chest, you’ll run the risk of looking him in the eyes. That would be pretty awkward.

With a small cough and a crack of your knuckles, you open up the PDF file on your phone and set it down next to you, glancing at what you need to do first. ‘Manual responsiveness tests’, apparently.

Suddenly waving your hand in front of his eyes makes him blink more, as expected, although they could have just as easily been winks as his one eye is covered. Next, to test for his voice or something, is to gently set your hand against his throat and have him hum. You ask him to do so as you place your palm against the front of his neck, and he looks almost scared, but croaks out a low sing-song hum anyway.

“Stick your arms out,” you command, and both noodle-y arms lift up and straight out. He narrowly misses knocking the lamp off the coffee table when he moves them backwards, then misses your knee when he brings them forward. He doesn’t seem too in control of his hand movements, but he won’t be needing them anyway.

You’re not in a particularly conversational mood, and so the only words that are leaving your mouth are instructions. Mettaton keeps his gaze on one fixed point to his left – you’re not sure what he’s staring at, or if he’s even staring at anything. You guess that he’s just avoiding your eyes, which makes working on him a whole lot easier.

Next test...his heart? Alphys really didn’t want to miss out any areas. You flick your finger upwards, and Mettaton leans forward, raising from sitting on his calves.

“I’m gonna have to-“ You glance at exactly what the instructions are, “-‘calibrate’ your heart. Just...don’t do anything weird, please.”

“Be gentle,” he says quietly, and you look him in the eyes before continuing. You open up the chamber with delicate hands, removing the soul in one and closing it again with the other. It’s cracked, and feels harder than the last times you’ve touched it. This is terrifying. One wrong move and you’ve killed him.

You try not to think about that.

Holding it in both palms now, you try to lightly push the halves together, noticing the distinct lack of slickness. They don’t budge and end up cracking a little more when they fall apart, dangerously close to splitting the whole way down. You hear a sharp intake of breath from Mettaton.

“Sorry,” you say.

“It’s fine.”

You keep brushing your thumb over one side, listening and watching the soul for a response. Nothing. Considering how sensitive it usually is for the robot, there has to be something seriously wrong. It probably can’t ‘function’ unless it’s a whole, meaning you’ll have to find a way to fix the cracks and shatters in it.

“Can you feel anything?” you ask, looking up at him. He’s not actually looking back, but his eyes flicker downwards to look at you once the question is asked, and then he shakes his head. You squeeze the heart. “What about now?”

Another sad head shake.

Frowning a little, you replace the heart. It was a problem that you’d located the source of, but hopefully there’d be something inside his chest that could help to fix it. The responsiveness tests were done (for now), and you scroll to read the next page: removing the chest plate.

“I need a screwdriver,” you say. “You’re in a good position where you are, so I’ll get it if you tell me where it is.”

He seems to tense up a little, and then looks over at the kitchen entrance. “On the counter, darling. Ignore the mess.”

Your stomach flutters a little at the use of the pet name, and you nod before sliding off the sofa and heading into the kitchen. There wasn’t much of a mess, but the screwdriver was sitting right in the middle of it. Some seemingly loose wires, a chunk of mostly flat metal with random bumps and a hole that looks like it should slot in somewhere, and some familiar pink slime, along with the tool you came in to get. For a brief moment, the possibility that it was some kinky technique that went wrong crosses your mind, but you don’t think he’d be like this if it was.

You return with just the screwdriver, eyeing him suspiciously as you get back on the sofa and looking for a difference. Aside from the obvious depressive mood, of course.

“...What?” he says.

“Nothing.”

He stays quiet.

You set to work taking off the front of his chest, unscrewing the two top screws, then the middle ones at the sides, then the two underneath ones. It seemed like a very flimsy design for something so advanced, and so you’re not surprised when Mettaton chips in.

“Alphys may have sent you a rather outdated manual. There’s a locking system to properly take it off now, just under my arm. Flick the switch across to take it off.” You do as you’re told when he lifts his arm, and you hear a little click. “It was so I could avoid having...ugly screws everywhere.”

That made sense. You can now take the front off with ease, exposing the masses of wires and LEDs and plastic boxes and switches and _everything that you don’t know how to use yet still have to tamper with_. Setting down the front plate, you pick your phone up again to take a closer look at what you have to do. It says that you need to check the coloured wires, which are helpfully labelled on the diagram and then, you notice, in colour order inside Mettaton, creating a rainbow of electronics. Pride quite literally was always inside him.

Brushing the unneeded wires out of the way of the parts you do actually need, you check the manual again, and then turn back.

The red wire is first, labelled as a ‘response sensor’, and you need to unplug it and ‘ask him anything. idrk anything works tbh’. You tug it out of the black box that it’s connected to and sit back, looking at his face. There’s no change in...anything, really, so you go ahead and ask.

“What date is your birthday?” you prompt. He opens his mouth to speak, and then closes it again, and just looks at you. His eyes have a definite kind of ‘internal screaming’ vibe going on.

A simple yes/no question should do. “Did Alphys build you?”

You know the answer is yes, but he just looks at you somewhat desperately. You plug in the red wire again and repeat the first question.

“14th February. Valentine’s Day,” he says with confidence, looking a little more relieved. You repeat the second question.

“Yes, she did.” It seems like that wire controls his ability to answer questions with a definite response, whether he knows the answer or not. You can only imagine how scary it would be to have that unplugged all of the time.

The orange wire is ‘dextral and sinistral calibration’, and disconnecting it makes Mettaton’s hands flop over limply. You reach down and tug his wrist up to you, making a variety of motions with your free hand.

“Copy me,” you say, and his fingers twist and move in random ways that are definitely not what you’re doing. Without releasing his wrist, you plug the wire back in. He copies your motions perfectly now.

He stops you before you have a chance to reach for the yellow wire. “Hold the side of my chest when you pull that one out. It’s my leg one, in simpler terms, and it’ll just mean I fall over since I’m leaning on them.”

“What are the non-simpler terms?”

He shrugs.

You press your hand to his side and unplug the yellow wire. He wasn’t lying; you feel his whole upper body weight against your palm and it takes all your strength to keep him upright. You quickly replace the wire and you can feel him correct himself and his position.

“Well, that works,” he says with just a hint of a smile. It was more obvious in his eye than on his lips, but you can see it there anyway.

‘Neurological transmitter’ is next, and the lime green wire is pulled out without hesitation. You...kind of wish you’d have hesitated, because when it’s out, Mettaton just stares straight ahead, no emotion on his face at all.

“...Mett?” you ask, daring to use his nickname. There’s no response. You wave your hand in front of his eye. Again, no response.

You didn’t think to read the instructions, did you? A quick check of the PDF file reveals that it disconnects any brain functions – you guess that that’s the main source of his code and programming. You plug the green wire back in and watch his visible eye.

A blink. Thank fucking god.

You’re at a loss when you read the blue wire’s label – messily scrawled onto the obviously scanned-in copy is ‘vertebral column (cervical/thoracic/lumbar/sacrum/coccyx) transmitter V IMPORTANT DO NOT BREAK!!’.

“Wa-“ Mettaton starts, but then he’s cut off while you disconnect it and his whole body falls into a jelly-like state on the floor. His arms unwind themselves and lie limply on the floor, while his body seems to lose any kind of tension. His neck snaps backwards too, and you’re thanking everything that he doesn’t have an actual spine to break.

You choke back a laugh. Now is not the time.

“That was...awfully undignified,” he comments passively. “Please put it back.”

Mettaton is the only one here with extendable arms, and you unfortunately can’t reach his chest from your position on the sofa. You reluctantly slide down, straddling his lap to plug the blue wire back in. It takes a moment, but he sits back up, rolling his neck around on his shoulders and slyly setting his hands against your hips. You look down at them, then give him a stern look.

“Sorry. Habit,” he says as you brush them off and readjust yourself back on the sofa.

“Nice try.”

“I wasn’t _trying_ anything.”

Rolling your eyes, you return to your phone, using it to block out his eyeline. The purple wire has two steps to it – you have to disconnect it, and then try the different buttons and dials just above where the wire joins the box before plugging it back in.

You do as the manual commands, and ask him to speak before messing with the extra features.

“Hello world,” he says, the voice now coming from his speaker area of his chest rather than the box presumably located in his throat. Alphys actually set that as a default response? What a nerd.

You twist one of the small dials from 40 to 100. “And again.”

“Hello world,” he repeats, except this time, his voice is higher-pitched and squeaky, sounding vaguely like the old ‘Chipmunks cover’ songs that used to be uploaded to YouTube after being ran through Audacity. You giggle, and he manages a smile. “Glad I could entertain. Now put me back to default, please.”

You return the dial to normal but press another button, and the light above it only stays lit while your finger is on it. You hold it down and ask him to speak again.

_“Hello world!”_

There go your eardrums.

You miss them already.

The sound booms out of him, and you quickly realise that this enhances the loudness of his voice similar to how a megaphone would. With a nervous laugh, you release the button and plug the purple wire back in.

“I would’ve warned you, sweetheart, but since you so rudely dismissed my last warning, I felt it wasn’t needed.” You scrunch your nose up and stick your tongue out at him like a child, and in return he lets his tongue loll out of his mouth like he does in the majority of selfies that he takes.

One wire left: the pink wire. You disconnect it, only giving the manual a brief look. Something about emotional responses, you think. Eh. You'll find out soon enough.

“Say something to me,” you say. “ _Me._ As in, directed at me. Not just anything.”

He pauses, as if thinking what to say, and then just says your name. Sensing that it wasn’t enough, he follows up with, “we’re friends”.

You just look at him. His face doesn’t change.

Were you? You came over to do this at Alphys’ command; otherwise, you don’t know how long you would have left it before you came back. If you’d have come back at _all_. Maybe Alphys was dead-set on getting you back together. No, that’s stupid. You knew she had a thing for shipping people, based on what Mettaton had told you about her before, but you didn’t think she would take it _this_ far.

At least he said you were friends. You weren’t yet sure whether you reciprocated it, based on what he did the other week – fucking you and then going on a date with someone else was not exactly a quality you looked for in a friend – but it was a start. If you could forgive him, and forgive yourself for going off at him, maybe you could get past it all and start fresh.

Wordlessly, you plug the wire back in again. “Say something else to me.”

He repeats your name. A pause. A blink.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

You’re not going to pretend you didn’t hear him. You’re not going to do that. Instead, you keep the eye contact, biting the inside of your lower lip before looking away and giving a little shrug.

“You were kind of a dick to me when you did what you did,” you start, taking the front piece after making sure all the wires were back in their usual place and slotting it back on. “And I was really, really mad. And I talked to BP- Burgerpants, I mean, and he agreed with me. It was a dick move, Mett. I think you know that.”

He just nods. You slide the trigger switch across and start to screw in the piece.

“Before that happened...I really liked you. I think you knew that. Neither of us...really admitted it, but it was there. I wanted to help you date other people and be a good friend and all that other bullshit, but I kind of just wanted you to end up with me. And at times that seemed likely, and then not so likely. I was more than happy to have sex with you, but going on a date with someone else after was the final straw. It just made me feel like you were using me to get places. To get dates, and then for sex when you couldn’t get any elsewhere.”

You have no finishing, mic-drop, paper-throwing conclusion. You push in the final screw, lean back, and shrug with a little shake of your head. He looks like he might cry, but he nods again and sucks it up. Taking a deep breath, he starts.

“I know what I did was terrible. I still went on the date, but...there was nothing. It didn’t feel natural, and considering I’m as far from natural as you can get, that was a sign something wasn’t right, darling.” You smile. “I can’t express how sorry I am. I never made arrangements to see you or talk it out because I didn’t want to ruin anything else. I wanted to give you space.”

“A good call,” you say.

“I’m glad,” he smiles. “And...I’d like to try again. Permitting you want to, though, obviously. Except maybe this time you don’t have to call me Mettaton.”

You narrow your eyes. “Wh-...what?”

“You can call me your boyfriend.”

You hear a little whirr, and his heart glows a little brighter. “That’s fine with me,” you say quietly, your smile a little wider. Another spark, and the heart is brighter still, some of the cracks and shatters repairing themselves. You watch it curiously, wondering silently how it all works.

“I see you looking,” he chuckles, taking it out of the chamber and clutching it in his gloves. He offers it to you, and you take it gently so nothing goes wrong and you don’t break it. Again. Or kill him. Although seeing him suffering was ten times worse.

It seems to remould itself together with little sparks and beats. It glows in your hands and you can feel it getting warmer. There’s no slick slime, this time; just the occasional pulse and flicker of light. He watches it in your hands from his position on the floor, his eye glowing pale pink and his little grin growing, baring his fangs slightly.

“I think I might be in love with you, too,” you say, “and I think I always have been. That’s so cliché, right? My god, I’m turning into a hopeless romantic.”

He nods, still just smiling at you, and there’s a silence that hangs in the air for a minute while you both do nothing but look at each other. And then, suddenly, he says, “can I kiss you?”

You don’t recall him ever asking before, and it’s sweet. Obviously he asked before doing anything more, but just a little kiss never required prior permission. You figure it’s because you might have...got back together? Even though you were never dating in the first place?

“No,” you tease, keeping a sterner look on your face. His own falls, him looking at you like you just crushed his heart under your shoes.

“That’s fine, darling,” he forces out. “I’ll keep this steady. I don’t want t-“

You cut him off by leaning across and placing a gentle kiss to the tip of his nose. You swear that there’s a pink underglow to his face plates, and his fans are whirring harder than you’ve ever heard them. That’s all it took to make him flustered? A little nose kiss?

“I’m messing with you, Mett. You can kiss me if you want. I don’t mind.”

Without much hesitation, he closes the gap between you to press a small kiss to your lips, letting his fangs affectionately nip at your lower lip. It’s cute, and it makes you smile wider despite the kiss currently happening.

When you break apart, Mettaton chuckles quietly, and runs a hand through his hair, pushing his fringe back. This, in turn, exposes the other side of his face – which, you notice, doesn’t have the usual cover plate on, and a select few wires are loosely hanging out. They seemed more tightly packed in before. Maybe Alphys was making changes before welding the final version on?

And then it set in: the metal and wires in the kitchen belonged to Mettaton.

“Your face...is gone?” you say, phrasing it like a question rather than a statement to soften the blow. You see him tense up again, and take in a deep artificial breath.

“Shit,” he mutters, and then speaks louder. “Just decided to mess around with my internals, sweetheart. Happens all the time.”

You study his face. “Can I have the _real_ reason, please?”

“That _is_ the real reason. I _do_ sometimes mess around with my own wires, for different reasons.”

You reach across to push his fringe away from his face, taking one of the cut-off wire ends between your thumb and index finger. It feels very loose, and you worry that a slight tug may pull it out completely. “Yeah, but _this_ doesn’t happen just by messing around.”

“I had a moment,” he confesses finally, after a few minutes of you wordlessly poking around at his face. You run your hands over the set-in wires, through the ones slightly raised, through the ones sticking out completely. He doesn’t talk, react, or even flinch while you do. “It’s so...awful-looking. I don’t want it all there. I can remove it all, and it makes me feel less human. I know I’m not a human anyway, but I can pretend. And it just...it just- I just had a little moment of desperation and took the cover off. I wanted to see if there was anything underneath.”

You listen intently, but feel the need to ask: “but...why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never felt more strong an emotion, in all honesty. Something just got the better of me and I was upset, darling. Don’t ask me about the whys or hows of it - it was an impulse decision because I felt bad."

"Please don't do it again," you say, shaking your head. "I don't want you to hurt yourself."

"Oh, it doesn't hurt. And even if it did...well, you know me," he says with a little wink - his sad smile doesn't quite carry the same flirtiness, "...um, I can't quite think of a way to say that without explicitly stating that I don't mind pain. In _that_ kind of way."

"I...don't think I was aware of that."

"I may or may not have vaguely alluded to it the first time we got somewhere. The _very_ first time."

You pause, and then stick a hand out to hit his arm. It doesn't actually make contact, and then you try again, actually giving him a little knock this time. It hurt you more than it did him. He looks at your hand, then at you.

"What are you expecting, darling?" he asks with a bewildered smile.

"I don't know. A response or something. I was just testing."

He opens his mouth to speak and promptly closes it again, rolling his eyes before letting out an obviously forced porn star-quality moan with little jazz hands to accompany the sarcasm. You can't even look him in the eyes when you laugh, instead choosing to cover your face with a hand. It doesn't take long for Mettaton to gently pry it away again and clasp it in his own.

"My face can wait until tomorrow, darling. I don't intend to go places anyway, and besides, it's late and you look positively _drawn_. Not any less gorgeous, mind you."

Your heart flutters at his compliment. "Is that you asking me to stay?"

"Of course not, sweetheart! How _rude_ of you to just invite yourself to the home of a star," he taunts, feigning offense with a palm to his chest and widened eyes. "Did nobody ever teach you manners?"

"Oh _nooo_ ," you mock, "send me to jail. I'm the _worst_."

"Jail is my bed, honey."

"That'll do."

"And your sentence is a hundred snuggles."

"That'll also do."

 

\---

 

You can't sleep. Neither can Mettaton. Lying there and cuddling is an okay compromise.

There's almost no light in the room, save for the gradually dimming light of Mettaton's heart as he gets more and more tired. It's pitch black out, seeing as it's either really late or really early, and you let yourself idly wonder if you'd locked your apartment.

You're close (but not too close) and holding Mettaton's hand in your own while the both of you try to drift off on your sides, facing each other; this becomes a challenge when you can't tear your eyes from how pretty _your boyfriend_ looks while he sleeps. You're honestly jealous - you don't exactly consider yourself a majestic sight to wake up to, with your drool on the pillow and tired, minimum-wage-worker dark circles - although you'd privately agree that the unfinished side of his face is a little jarring. Never to his face, of course. He'd probably have a breakdown.

"You need to sleep, my lovely," Mettaton says suddenly, making you jump. His eyes don't even open a crack.

"How do you know I wasn't?"

"I can feel your thumb rubbing my hand."

"Mm." You don't really know what else to say. You'd been caught out in the act, but at least now that you knew _he_ knew you could move elsewhere. You shift a little closer to reach for his thigh, and he flinches at your touch before relaxing.

"You really _aren't_ tired, huh?" he comments quietly, moving his lower half closer to you.

"Not like that," you say. Gently, you drag your finger in slow circles over his upper thigh, similar to how he did on your back when he stayed at yours that one time. You hear a small breath from him, but his eyes still don't open. "Is this okay? Can you feel it?"

"I can feel it alright," he mumbles. "My legs are pretty sensitive."

"Good."

You continue your little shapes, tracing triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons - and hearts. Of course. Plenty of hearts, and maybe a little dick just to get him back for when he did it to you. Sadly, he doesn't notice, and just shifts himself with a little whimper. Oh, god. You don't want this to be turning him on at all. You just wanted to help him sleep so that you can watch him and that's definitely not creepy at all but he's just so cute and-

"I already knew you were good with your hands, but good _lord_ , darling, this is quite possibly the nicest thing I've ever had done to me." A pause. "And that includes all the sex."

Oh. How nice. You keep going, and he lets out another whimper of satisfaction, his lips curling into a small, sleepy smile. In a vague attempt to quicken his sleeping pattern (or, rather, how fast he can shut down), you start to hum a tune of a song that you've come to quite like recently. It's only when you get halfway through that Mettaton opens his one working eye and looks at you.

"Is that my theme song, darling?"

Is it? Fuck. Oh.

"I...uh, I guess so. I didn't really think about what I was humming."

"You have a wonderful humming voice."

"I don't know. My singing voice is just...average."

"A voice as lovely as yours is bound to sound absolutely gorgeous no matter what sounds it's making." His eye closes again. "Words, lyrics, compliments, sarcasm...moans, whimpers, gasps-"

"Mettaton!"

He just chuckles and stays quiet, letting you carry on with your hand movements in peace. You stop humming, now extremely self-conscious of your own voice. It takes you just a little by surprise when you feel his arm latch around your waist and pull you closer, setting your hand dangerously close to his ass while you doodle away with your finger.

The next thing that takes you by surprise is a small whirring sound. It doesn't sound at all like the ones that you're used to when he's flustered, but instead it pitches from high to low, and finishes with a little beep. His heart dims even more, to the point where it barely even illuminates the duvet, and you move your hand to press your palm against the glass front. It's warm. Very warm, and vibrating ever so slightly with the murmurs of his internal devices.

There's definitely no waking him up now he's gone into shutdown mode (at least, you _think_ it's shutdown mode - you've been right about all his other functions thus far), so you lean across and press another kiss to his nose, like the one you gave him earlier. His little fluster fans come on at high power.

"They still work even when you're asleep?" you mutter to nobody in particular. His sensors must be trained to work overtime at this point, what, with the amount of 'fun times' that he has (or had) with fans. Lucky guy. "That's so cute. _You're_ so cute. It's an honour to date you. Properly, I mean."

For some reason, you find yourself thinking back to when he said his emotional capabilities were lacking, and that's why he needed help with dating. He seemed to be alright with it now; maybe his real dating and fake dating did come in handy after all. He was doing the right things, mostly - aside from the incident which almost caused you to never see him again - and you feel as though the fact that you're a human and he's a robot suddenly became a little more irrelevant. Sure, you could very easily be kinkshamed for it (who would have thought you'd enjoy an incredibly curly, extendable tongue and vibrating fingers so much? Anyone _would_ ), but you were happy, and you'd even go as far as to say that you felt safe around Mettaton.

All this sappy romantic thinking is tiring you out. You draw another heart, spell out another 'I love you', and slowly fade into the embrace of sleep with Mettaton's arm still hooked around you.

You don't feel him ever so slightly pull you closer and move his hand to meet yours on his thigh, lacing your fingers together with the very last of his sleep mode battery before letting his internal systems shut down for the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for being patient, i'll try to keep a more regular schedule!
> 
> and if you're ever curious about how far i am with the next chap, don't be afraid to send me an ask on tumblr because those actually kinda get my ass in gear lmao
> 
> just want to say a massive massive maaaaaaassive thank you to everyone reading, commenting, and leaving kudos - i never expected to actually...get this far with it? and have people respond to it the way that they have? and everything that you guys say is so wonderful and so i'm thanking all of you for making this fic possible. i love you all <3
> 
> now i'm gonna recede back into my usual persona- [flips hair] pft. thanks 4 readin


	12. the real chapter 12 in disguise because the author is a stupid fuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for being so patient holy shit here's like 5k words again
> 
> the notice i had up yesterday is down in the notes if you want to read my reasons and explanations!
> 
> this dooooooes have implied smut in it but it was skipped for the sake of getting a chapter out. i'll add it into a bonus chapter once it's all finished, along with other stuffs that i cut out or that the reader didn't get to see ;3 but if you don't wanna read that (it's just smut for the sake of smut, not rly plot-advancing or anything) just skip to the very last paragraph! and uh. yeah. there are two things very heavily implied near the end, one more obvious than the other, so make sure ur reading carefully ;0
> 
> other than that, enjoy <3

 

When you wake up, Mettaton is gone.

The space next to you previously occupied by the tall metallic figure is now empty, a simple crease in the sheets left from where he was lying the night before. There's no note on the pillow - not that he'd need to leave one, since this is is his apartment, but there's no indicator of where he went. You sit up quickly, in a mixture of panic and shock. And fear. That too.

Your heart starts to bear a little more frantically until you hear a faintly distant singsong voice, coming from outside the room.

_"I've never so adored you-..."_

And then a crash.

_"...Shit."_

Oh. He's not _too_ far, then. For a minute, you got really worried that he'd just left you again. You really didn't want a repeat of your last fiasco.

You contemplate getting out of bed, but then decide against it when your limbs feel too weak to lift your body up. Mettaton's bed is comfy as fuck anyway. You're glad he chose cotton comfort over silk stylishness.

His bedroom isn't actually overly stylish, like you thought it would be. Sure, the chic, modern furniture fits him, but you half-expected the wallpaper to be glittery or the floors to be marble or something. Instead, it's oddly sentimental, with things stuck on the walls that you can only assume are mementos from his time in the underground. Selfies with him and Alphys, a tour poster, Polaroid pictures, all things that are precious to him but for reasons that you don't yet understand. You knew that he was a pretty emotional guy, despite him not always handling said emotions so well, and his diary that you totally should not have read is a good indicator of that.

Just as you turn your head to look at the things on the back of the door, legs twisting into the duvet, it crashes open. Who else but Mettaton, with a little tray and an apron and his hair tied back into a little nugget of a ponytail. His face plate is back on again, a little wonky-looking but no less cute. You smile somewhat tiredly up at him, barely flinching at the bang.

"Good morning, my love!" he says cheerfully. He must have been awake much earlier for you to miss the glitching that usually comes with his morning attitude. "Breakfast is served."

The tray is placed gently on your lap, and then he takes a seat next to you. "Bless you," you mumble with a broad smile, looking down at the toast and mug of tea. Of course, said mug is hot pink and glittery. He probably even has a whole packet of edible glitter or something for the other times he cooks.

"I didn't know what you liked, since I've never had you stay over here before, so I went with something standard. I wanted to make eggs to make an immature 'hot hot leg' joke, and then I wanted to make coffee as an excuse to show off my wonderful latte art skills, but...like I said, sweetheart, I didn't know what you liked."

"I like you," you say.

"You can't eat me, though." A pause. You look at him blankly, and his eyes shift to one side and then back at you with a glimmer of a wink. "Well."

"...Yeah, you can't...can't argue with that," you reply, not quite getting what he's getting at. To save the awkwardness, you dig into the toast, and while you do Mettaton talks some more.

"I'm on a rather tight schedule today, hence why I'm up early, so I'll give you a little rundown." Chomp, chomp. "Alphys phoned you yesterday to give me a checkup because I have a performance tonight. I mean, that's what I assume. She may have told you that, but seeing as we weren't on casual speaking terms for the best part of yesterday, I didn't ask. Anyway, it's at the arena just down the road, so it's no problem for me to get there. I'm just letting you know that at about four, we'll have to head there so I can get ready, rehearse, sound check, etcetera."

"What's the time now?" you ask, spewing toast crumbs everywhere. Hot. Mettaton chuckles and flicks a crumb from your cheek.

"Three. You slept through my rehearsing here, which was _quite_ the feat. I had that music pretty loud."

You're the worst. How could you not even know when his concerts are? "I have no clothes here aside from what I slept in. So. Uh."

"You can wear something of mine, sweetie."

"You're so tall."

"You wear everything oversized, anyway, darling. I think you'd look positively _adorable_ in one of my sweaters," he says, standing up carefully to avoid knocking the tray and flinging his closet doors open. "Or out of them. Both will do."

"It was only a matter of time before you made a sex joke."

He looks over his shoulder at you before returning to rifling through his clothes, eventually pulling out a black sweatshirt with a bunch of perfectly positioned white squares on the front and some circles.

"This was one of the first pieces of merchandise I had made. It's my beta form! Isn't it cute?"

Oh, now you see it. It is actually really cute, but it looks massive. Maybe it's the way he's holding it that makes it look twice your size. He closes the doors again while you finish the toast and tea, and then he moves the tray to the side table so you won't risk any accidents while you sleepily rub your eyes. The sweatshirt is deposited at the end of the bed, and before you can even protest or know what's going on, Mettaton is clambering over you and straddling your legs and holding something with one hand. His height means he has to look down at you a little.

"Hello," you say casually. Something wet prods at the side of your cheek, "and what the fuck are you doing?"

"Waking you up," he says, almost _too_ casually (to rival your nonchalant tone), and then he brings The Mysterious Wet Thing in front of you so you can see it. A wet wipe. Wow. Obvious. You notice the little bag of something next to his knee. "Just cleaning your face up a little. Not that it needs cleaning, of course. But I think a little highlighting and powder could do wonders for making you look a little less tired."

"Did you really have to straddle my legs to do this, though?"

"Of course, darling. You know me," he answers smugly, dabbing at your cheeks again while your eyes follow his left hand straying to your waist, latching just under your shirt to hold your skin. Ah, warmth.

He's very delicate in his movements, being super careful around your eyes and making sure that you look all fresh and dandy. At least, that's probably what you look like. Then there's a faint bristle against your skin, the makeup brush, and he's gently dusting your cheeks with some kind of powder. All the while, you're watching his eyes - he's focused on his makeup application, but he keeps chewing his lip thoughtfully with those delightfully sharp fangs. He leans back with a beam, and sets the powder and brush back in the bag.

"All done! I only did a little bit of shimmer and freshen. You look brighter already, sweetheart," he says, smoothing your hair down with a proud look up and down you.

You laugh. "Thanks. Makeup's not really my thing, but I appreciate it. Although I think my sudden brightness is probably to do with your hand on my waist. If my cheeks are flushed, that's why."

His eyes flicker to said hand, and then he slowly brings it to the front of your stomach. You don't move, despite your self-consciousness. You trust him enough.

The hand moves upwards again, nearing your chest. "Someday," he starts, "I want to explore every part of you. Not even in a specifically sexual way. I'm just...so curious about this beautiful thing that you get to live in."

"And I'm curious about this beautiful thing that you get to live in," you counter, reaching a hand out to set your hand against his hip. He gives a small chuckle.

"Not quite the same, darling."

"Of course it is."

He just scoffs, and you're almost worried about his tone until he adopts his familiar little smirk. "I wanted for the longest time to be a human. And Alphys made this hunk of glamour sitting atop your legs, and I went from hating myself to loving myself endlessly in a day or two. It was wonderful. I'd like-...I know you can't really shift bodies, but I'd like to help you get that way. From hate to love, I mean."

You're about to protest when he holds up his free hand to your lips. "I can feel you tensing up whenever I touch you. I know I've already seen most of you. This bed has a rather bittersweet memory attached to it, if you remember. But you were still...I don't know. Through that, even, you still seemed tense, like you had something to hide. I don't mind if there is, but I just want to help you love yourself. You helped me come to terms with human emotions, darling, so I'm going to help you come to terms with just how wonderful you are. If you want me to, of course."

You're speechless for a while, and then you remember that conversations require two people to speak. "Yeah."

"All that speech and I just get a 'yeah'?" he teases.

"What else do you want?"

He considers. He could ask for anything and you'd probably say yes, and he totally knows this. "Give me a kiss and you're off the hook."

"No deal."

He pouts, giving you sad little puppy dog eyes. "Fine. Keep it. I'll get it from you one way or another, darling. One way..." he repeats, his finger tracing along your bare skin, making you shudder as he heads further up your side, "...or another."

He then leaves a little kiss on your nose - his ability to switch between terrifying seductive and cute as shit is incredible.

"Now," he says quietly, his eye sparkling as it meets yours. "I have a concert to perform at. Yes. Concert. We got sidetracked. If you're not working today, darling, you're more than welcome to accompany me and be my gorgeous, stylish arm candy."

You stifle a laugh. "You're only saying I'm stylish because I'm gonna be wearing _your_ sweater."

"Of course not," he says, sounding borderline offended. "Did you not just hear my whole spiel on how wonderful you are? With the response you gave me, I'm starting to think you didn't listen to a single word."

"I was thinking about how great you look from this angle," you save, digging for an excuse when just saying 'I was kinda taken aback because it was super sweet' would have sufficed. "Normally it's me above you because you're tall, but this is good. This is good."

 "Thank you, my lovely," he replies, fans whirring a little as he reaches across for his phone. He continues talking but starts messing with the phone, neglecting eye contact for social media, "but I can tell that you pulled that one out of thin air."

You watch him tap away. After a long pause, you speak. "And you moan at _me_ for not listening?"

He looks up sheepishly. "You didn't say anything!" he exclaims defensively.

No, he's right. You pout and he rolls his visible eye before holding the phone out in front of you both, shuffling slightly off your legs to sit at your side.

"We have yet to take selfies, sweetheart. That's what I was doing." Oh, great. You cover your mouth with your hand instinctively and get as close to him as possible. He puts the phone down and gives you a look. "Seriously? Is that how you take all your selfies?"

"Yeah. I don't like how my mouth looks in photos," you shrug, opting for the truth. He reaches across and gently pulls your hand down, holding it and lifting the phone up with his other hand again.

"Your smile is gorgeous, as is the rest of you," he says quietly, looking you in the eyes.

"Eh. Or we could not do that."

"Just one. For me. Please. And then we'll look at it and if you don't like it, we'll take another few and you can have your hand wherever you like." The puppy dog eyes are back. How can you say no to them?

"...Fine," you sigh, shuffling closer and not letting go of his hand. He doesn't exactly seem like he's going to release his grip any time soon, either. You look at the phone and as soon as you see how wonderfully happy Mettaton looks to be taking it, your smile doesn't look forced. It's genuine. Seeing him happy makes you happy.

It clicks, and he brings the phone down again, opening up the camera roll. The selfie is right there...and it's perfect. You both look so happy and even your smile looks nice. (You would say 'for once' but Mettaton would shut you up.) Mettaon looks as glamourous as ever, his bright eyes and cute little beam showing a clear difference to his usual posed, seductive selfies. You want a copy of it. You want it on your wall. You want it everywhere and you're so in love it hurts.

"Can I post it?" he asks. "We look fucking _adorable,_ darling. _You_ look adorable."

"Go ahead," you smile. His eyes linger on yours before he looks down at the phone. A few quick taps and it's probably everywhere, but you're too focused on snuggling up close to him. Closer. Closer. Eeeeeeven closer.

"See, I told you that you don't have to cover your mouth with your hand," he mutters, using his free hand to stroke your hair. "Instead, consider covering your mouth with _my_ mouth."

Without much hesitation, and without the greatest of elegance, you stretch yourself up to meet him in a messy kiss, but it's fine. Not everything has to be perfect and cliche all the time, and that's just how you want it.

 

\---

 

Dating a celebrity has its perks. For example, you get flashy gifts and live in luxury, and VIP services whenever you even mention your boyfriend by name. At least, that's what you _expect_. You're not sure yet; you've only been dating him properly for a day, if you're not counting the not-so-subtle flirting, kissing, and fucking that occurred between you two while you were just 'helping him date'. Helping him, your ass - every minute that you two spent with each other was charged by tension of every kind. It's just that neither of you wanted to be the first to act on it.

On the other hand, it also has downsides. (That was your original point. You got sidetracked thinking about robot sex, goddammit. And by you, that means it's obviously the author's fault.) Like paparazzi, and tabloids, and having your boyfriend fucking disappear for an hour and leave you lost in an unfamiliar arena.

"Hey," you say casually, leaning against the admissions desk. The little dog-creature working behind doesn't look impressed. "Could you tell me where Mettaton's dressing room is?"

"Nice try," they say. "So what's your excuse? He asked for you personally, right? No, _no, wait,_ he told you that you're backstage crew. _Totally._ I've heard every trick in the book."

"He's my boyfriend...?" you say. They pause (paws- no), and then burst out laughing.

"You're _deluded_. Show me proof."

"This," you tug at the sweater, "is his."

"Anyone can buy that sweater. It's on his merch shop, for crying out loud."

"It smells like him!"

"He sprays himself with his own publicly-available perfume. That's why everyone buys it!"

"I- I have texts from him!" you protest, scrambling for your phone to show them your conversations. They don't even blink. They've probably seen this act a hundred times before, a thousand - but this is the one time that it's real.

"Great, you got your friend to text you under Mettaton's name? Clever," they scoff, not looking at the phone.

"There's video messages too," you say defensively, loading up the bloopers from when he sent you those song videos, "where he's not looking perfect and fucking things up. You really think they'd just be available anywhere? No. He sent them to me." Playing on his ego is a bit of a low blow, but whatever. He isn't here to hear it.

 A scoff. "So what if you found some older videos. That's not good enough."

"Check his Instagram and Facebook page and whatever. There's literally a selfie of us from this morning." Speaking of which, you need to get him to send you a copy of that. You haven't even thought to check where he posted it and with what caption. You're actually surprised you haven't been swarmed by jealous fans yet. The receptionist takes your phone and looks through the blooper videos, and then you see them looking through his various social media too. How rude. You snatch it back as they click off the selfie of you two.

"Jeez, sorry about that. I don't really keep up-to-date," they say, backing down. "Follow the signs towards rows 18-25, and then take a left at the very end of the corridor into the staff-only bit. It won't be hard to find it then."

You nod your thanks, deciding that they don't really deserve an apology or anything. It's not really their fault - there probably are a lot of people who've tried that, and it's their job to stop them - but oh, well. You take off, heading towards the rows number and checking on your phone while you're at it. The selfie is there and displayed proudly, captioned with 'the only one I love more than myself', which makes you laugh, and a bunch of the arrow-to-the-heart emojis. He's so in love. So are you.

You're not even sure what you were to each other before you started 'officially' dating, but at least things turned out the way they did.

 

\---

 

You made the mistake of opening the closet specifically labelled 'PLEASE DON'T OPEN!!!! <3' and now you're paying the price.

Hundreds of notes, letters, teddy bears, chocolate boxes, pairs of underwear, roses, fake roses, perfume bottles, and photos collapsed from their neatly stacked pile in the cupboard and spewed out all over the floor. Fuck _indeed_. It takes you a good twenty minutes to clean them all up and crowd them back in, and Mettaton is still nowhere to be seen. You haven't checked your phone, though, so while you idly search for an open place to shove the few remaining gifts you see if you've suddenly become popular in the past half hour or so.

Messages from two different people. Nice.

 

 **[Burgerpants:** I spy with my little eye someone making up with a robot **]**

 **[Burgerpants:** saw the ig post. Guess ya dont need my help anymore huh? **]**

 

He sounds almost offended. As if you'd just drop him as soon as you had Mettaton. He was there for you when said robot wasn't, and you're eternally grateful for it. You keep your reply short and sweet, since he's probably busy anyway.

 

 **[You:** yep! all's good now. thank you for helping me out but you better not stop being friends with me now just because i got the guy  >:c **]**

 

There's no immediate response, so you flick to the next message. Received a minute ago, from the one and only Mettaton. 

 

 **[Mett:** Finishing up now! Sorry for dashing off earlier, my stagehand wanted to get everything sorted. Where are you? <3 **]**

 

You figured it was probably something like that, and you're not at all mad at him. Like you said before, perks and downsides of dating a star. At least you got to have a bit of a snoop around first, because that's your favourite thing to do now, it seems.

 

 **[You:** i'm in ur dressing room. come quick before i eat all the chocolates in these gift boxes **]**

 **[Mett:** I'll be riiiiiiiight there. I just had to do a sound check before I get glammed up. **]**

 **[Mett:** 'Glammed' apparently isn't a word. It is now. **]**

 **[Mett:** When I'm king I'm going to officially make it a word. **]**

 **[You:** good luck taking over the whole world! :) :) :) **]**

 **[You:** bc you'll be oh so scary with your nugget ponytail and lil ankle boots **]**

 **[You:** fucking terrifying **]**

 **[Mett:** Watch me, darling. I could make you quiver my borrowed sweatshirt straight off. ♔ **]**

 

You set your phone down on the vanity and feel your hand latch around a handle, and - wow! - it opens the drawer. Not everything is locked, which is a relief. You're about to just shove the extra teddy and pile of notes in when you spot what items are already occupying some of the space. A bunch of rubbery, hot pink...oh god, those are definitely sex toys. One with straps, one without, one with battery packs, and one particularly massive-looking thing that you don't expect anyone would want near them.

Wow, your, uh...your boyfriend's definitely into some shit you weren't aware of.

Hey, everyone gets themselves off, right? Mettaton's no different. You know this. He knows that you know this, since he's made reference to it more than once. You're gonna take the mature high road and not mention them for the sake of not embarrassing him, although you'd like to get him back for all the times he's made you flustered. He doesn't seem like he'd get too embarrassed about sex, though, considering he used to have so much of it and how his image is partially built on his sexuality. Maybe that's not what he intended, but he can't help what makes people attracted to him. He's definitely got stuff going for him that you can understand being a part of the attraction.  

You hear heeled footsteps down the hall, and quickly shove the gifts in the dildo drawer and edge your way towards the sofa.

"Allow me to..." He doesn't wait for a response, pausing and glancing at the nearby light switch before flicking it on to brighten the room. "...shed a little light on the situation."

He catches your eye, and notices your suspicious little shuffle around the sofa, dragging your finger around the low back like you totally weren't just snooping.

"Was somebody snooping?" he asks.

"I was not snooping."

"Ah, ah. I didn't ask if _you_ specifically were, but I'll take your defensive response as a yes anyway, darling." He struts over to you, leaving the door open. He probably knew most of his crew at an intimate depth now anyway. Fuck privacy.

He collapses backwards onto the sofa, letting himself bounce with the springs before setting a hand on his stomach area and reaching the other up to gently stroke the side of your face. His hands are just as warm as you remember them being the first time you met. Alphys did a Good Thing with those heaters.

"Find anything interesting, sweetheart? I mean, I already know what's in here, but I want to know what piques your curiosity."

You won't lie, the fact that he keeps every single note and card from every fan is sweet, but your curiosity does have to lie with the rather intimidating-looking 'additions' that you found in the drawer.

Yeah, no, never mind. You won't ask.

"The chainsaw is...why is it there?" you say, trying to mask your desperate looking-around-for-other-things-to-talk-about face. You know exactly why it's there. There's no point in him even answering, but of course, he doesn't know that you're trying to detract your mind from that godforsaken drawer.

He chuckles, shifting his gaze momentarily while he closes his eyes. "Because it's gorgeous and pink, and anything gorgeous and pink should be there for everyone to see, like me."

(Then maybe he should have the contents of his vanity displayed.)

(Bad joke. Anyway.)

You eye said piece hanging on the wall proudly, like a display of honour. "What do you even use it for?"

"A prop, mostly."

"It's massive," you comment, looking back over. "Do you ever just sit on it while it's switched on and use it as a vibrator?"

Mettaton opens his mouth as if to speak, but then closes it and gives you a seemingly forced, wide-eyed smile, as if he can't really believe that you just said that. "Oh, my. I ought to wash your filthy little blowjob-ready mouth out with soap, darling."

Hypocrite. "What kinda sexy parts do you even have, anyway?"

"That's for me to know and for you to find out," he says with a sideways tap of his nose. Something glints in his eye, a little flicker. "Someday. Eventually. It was alluded to rather conspicuously earlier, purely by coincidence."

"I never miss a sex joke, Mett."

"You were tired, honey, and I said you couldn't eat me and then winked, implying you...well, that you can. In a metaphorical sense." No response from you. "Goodness gracious, darling, you can be slower than my processors on a bad day."

But you can't- oh. Oh, god, that's what he meant. "...Fuck, now I get it."

"You _did_ say you were curious," he laughs. "It's a, uh, slide-across thing. Hidden from usual view, obviously. Half of my personality is only available after 9PM."

His chuckle this time sounds more nervous, and not as confident as you'd expect. This is normal for him, though...right?

You move around to the sofa and sit on the end, lifting his extraordinarily heavy legs up briefly to sit down and then placing them across your lap. You hear him swallow, or at the very least, you hear him make a vague swallowing noise. He is a robot, after all. Swallowing is not on the list of things that he really needs to do, but he probably can. He's definitely hiding some anxiety about the whole situation, so with shaky hands you start to trace patterns on his calves again like how you did last night, when you tried to get him to sleep.

"Well, it's not quite 9PM yet, buuuuuut..." Your hand moves to his thigh. "...if you want me to do anything, I will."

This is a new bold step of confidence for you, and you think you like it. You're totally down, but he has a show on and it's too short notice and what if you don't know what you're doing and-

_"Please."_

It's raspy and wheezy, either out of anxiety or desperation, but it's a yes. You feel him guide your hand to a small switch on his hip that you'd neglected to find before (somewhere in the join between his leg and torso) and, with an awkward shuffle, a position change and a deep breath, you find that Mettaton's completely under your control. You wonder how many people have seen him this desperate, this vulnerable before, but then you remember that it doesn't matter.

All that matters now is the little whimpers coming from the robot and how you do this. Well, all that, and the time, too. But who cares.

 

\---

 

"Maybe- maybe c-cut your nails next time, darli- _ih_ -ing. Or fffile them. Someth-"

He cuts himself off with a loud moan, and you keep going until the arch in his back is curved enough to rival your smile.

 

 ---

 

 His concert is loud, bright, and full of screaming fans, just as you imagined it would be. It's even better from right in the front row, where you're surrounded by even more hollering people but just so close to Mettaton. Not that you need to be any closer - you have plenty of opportunities for that - but it's the thought that counts. Someone had even given you a free drink, in celebration of your new relationship, and you accepted it with a smile. Most of it was gone at this point, since the concert and crowd around you packed so much heat, and you think it was cola. Nice.

You should probably go and get some more while you have the chance. Mettaton just finished his last song before the break and most people are rushing out to buy merchandise and snacks, so why not relive your teen emo years and join the excitement? After all, you just have to head back down the the dressing room area and call up the security guard, and he'll escort you back to the front so you can gawp and make googoo eyes at your boyfriend.

You start to head out towards the exits, knowing that Mettaton was prepping to go back on somewhere else. The buzz is really getting to you; his concerts are fun and everyone is as hyped up as you are. Speaking of buzz, there goes your phone. You...stumble?...towards the archways leading to the food stalls surrounding the main hall, and pull out your phone, choosing to ignore the gaggle of girls pointing at you and sniggering behind their hands. Probably jealous.

 

 **[Mett:** I'm rehtar bsuy bckasatge so I can't ese yuo in btwetwen stes, but the nxet snog is dieictead to oyu, sewerthart. Lsietn otu. >3 **]**

 

What? No, it's blurry as shit. That's not what it says. Come on, eyes, work.

 

  **[Mett:** I'm rather busy backstage so I can't see you in between sets, but the next song is dedicated to you, sweetheart. Listen out. <3 **]**

 

That's better. It is kind of a shame you can't see him, but you also really need another fucking drink. You feel slower than usual, and the drink stall seems so. Far. Away. So far that you contemplate just going back already without a drink. Holding everything next to you for support on your way there, you scoot to the vending machine that thankfully doesn't have a queue and buy the first thing that you can process the full number of. Damn, pressing 'E15' is a lot harder than you previously thought. Whatever. You grab your bottle of Sprite once the machine eats all your change and then head back to the main hall, ready for the second half of the performance.

Everyone seems to be moving a lot faster than you, or they're going by at the speed of light or something. You hear a mic check and think _'fuck it, I'll fight my way through the crowd. I don't need no security guard'._

It seems really difficult to get there though, your movements getting increasingly shaky with every step. You stagger closer and closer to the back of the standing crowd, getting ready to cuff your way through if need be. All of a sudden, you hear loud screaming and the world is practically vibrating in front of your half-closed eyes.

_"Hello again, beauties!"_

Oh, wonderful, the set is starting. You're never gonna get back to the front now, and you're gonna look like a terrible choice for Mettaton's dating future. You don't even remember drinking tonight, but you feel woozy. Woozy and sick. Did something happen earlier, or...?

Whatever.

Wow, this room got dark real fast. You can't even see the bright pink spotlights, or Mettaton, or the crowd in front of you.

_"I'm sure you're all so eager to know, and I'm sure you've all seen my recent posts, but to cement things further: I'm dedicating this next song to my wonderful-"_

Something is seriously wrong.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> typing out 'sewerthart' in all seriousness made me laugh really hard
> 
> ok but yea next chap's gonna be a little harder but i'll put a warning at the top or something so nobody reads stuff they don't want to
> 
> tumblr, feel free 2 yell at me: polarising / polarise.co.vu
> 
> notice from yesterday:
> 
> I DIDN'T MEAN TO LEAVE IT THIS LONG
> 
> alright, so. the fic. still continuing, obviously. i do not intend to drop it at any point and leave it unfinished. i know each of the previous updates have had, like, a month in between each other, and i know that that's happened again this time, but i have a perfectly good explanation.
> 
> i'm basically writing the rest of this fucking thing in one go so that i can make updates regular again.
> 
> i'm not gonna update it all in one mega upload, but instead make updates weekly or biweekly depending on how much i cram into this ending. i have final exams starting in may and i've been busy, so i know i wouldn't be able to get much done around that time and so i've been writing it all now. this, unfortunately, means that everything else was put on hold, including the next chapter. it's written and sorted, but i want to get everything finished so i'm not rushing when i should be focusing on other things.
> 
> this whole fic started as a little time-wasting project and since then it's grown into something...a lot bigger than i was expecting, i guess? i have no intentions of leaving it incomplete. i couldn't do that to all of you reading, leaving kudos, commenting, etc, because i owe you guys more than that. that's why i'm posting this now instead of in the next chapter notes - you all deserve an appropriate explanation of what the actual fuck is taking so long and i didn't want to wait another while without anything.
> 
> chapters will still be around 3k-4.5k words, with maybe a few being longer if my brain can spit out more, and i'm looking to have about six or seven more. so you can expect anywhere between 18k and 31.5k more words of this shit! yay!
> 
> so far i have four chapters done, but they're mostly random chunks and i still need to fill in parts and write this and that and yada yada yada. if i hit more blocks near the ending i'll probably release some sooner so it's not a long-ass wait, but i'm definitely looking on posting the next chapter sometime this week seeing as it's already been a whole month. and then another week and a bit wait, maybe, and then the next chapter. and so on and so forth.
> 
> i love aaaaaaall of you and i'm very thankful that you're all being patient and waiting while i sort my shit out. and i hope that doesn't sound condescending. fuck. if it does, it wasn't supposed to be. thank you all so much for the support and kudos and comments and tumblr messages and everything. <3
> 
> in unrelated news: i rewatched season 6 of rupaul's drag race and remembered how in love with bianca del rio i am, and also adore delano is a cutie pie and i love both of them.
> 
> see you soon!
> 
> \- bunny <3


	13. loose ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long i'm a massive dick
> 
> but here i am, safe and alive, and here's the finale that you've (probably) all been waiting for

 

In a similar fashion to how you blacked out, you wake up to bright white lights in an otherwise dark room, surrounded by cheering and screaming and music. Only, this time, the noise is a lot more manageable and muffled in the distance, and you're lying on a softer surface. It takes you a good minute or two to fully open your eyes, and then you try to sit up only to be pushed back down. Gently, mind you. And that's definitely not a human (or robot) hand.

"Woah. Welcome to the world again, buddy. Stay down."

Burgerpants. Had he brought you here to...wherever you are? You honestly have no idea where you are right now. It looks like some place of Mettaton's, with all the cream fluffy pillows and neon vanity lights and pink accents, but you've never been here before. Where was Burgerpants in the first place, and where were you? Why are you here?

"Why?" you ask groggily, staying lying down. Little glow-in-the-dark stars litter the ceiling above you that you keep your eyes focused on, in fear of everything becoming too blurry if you moved elsewhere.

"Because there's one hundred percent somethin' wrong with you. I came back from the bathrooms and you were just...lying on the floor, I guess. Everyone was too focused on Mettaton," he says, scratching the back of his head.

"What? What was he doing? Why...wasn't he with me or... _doing_ something?"

"I mean, he _was_ doing something. We were both at his concert. I was there because _god_ , I bought a fuckin' ticket out of habit since that's what we always had to do back in the underground whether we wanted to go or not. So I was there, and you were, obviously, and I found you. Mett was on stage. He-...I don't know if he saw you then, but..." BP picks his phone up and looks through it, eventually holding it above you so you could see it. It's a video, scratchy and shaky and with terrible sound quality, but you can see Mettaton stopping performing and the music still playing as someone approaches him. He tries to swat them away, but eventually he turns to them and then rushes off the stage. There's gasps, cries, and then the video cuts off.

"Bouncer told him it was important and he needed to step off for a sec. Then he came backstage looking fucking _pissed_ , and then he saw me with you on my back, completely out of it, and for once in his life he actually let me speak. Just told him that I found you and that I'll take you to his dressing room while he finishes up. He gave me 'n the guards the a-ok and now _here we are,_ lil' buddy. The dressing room of dreams," he explains, finishing with a sigh. Awkward pause.

"...So why isn't he here now?"

"He briefly came back, but you were still out cold. Gave you a little kiss on the cheek. Pretty cute, honestly, but not considering the circumstances. Anyway, yeah, he came back but he's doing the meet-and-greet stuff now. You've been out for, like, two or three hours maybe."

Why? You know BP doesn't have the answers you're looking for, and maybe nobody does. The last thing you remember before waking up here is taking a selfie with Mettaton. Your boyfriend. He's still your boyfriend. You're thankful that you remember that.

"I think," BP begins, almost reading your mind, "that your drink was spiked or somethin'. Do you remember if you had a drink off anyone or anything?"

"I don't even remember going to the concert at all. I've never been in this room before."

BP eyes something on the sofa you're lying on and then looks back at you. "I can't confirm or deny that, bud. I don't know what you and hot-bot got up to in here before the show, if anything."

You try your hardest to think of something, anything, that might give even just the smallest idea of what had happened, but your mind draws a complete blank. You remember random fragments of the walk to here, presumably, and then nothing. It's like you just fell asleep there and then.

"But if someone gave you a drink, then...there mighta been something in it, maybe. I'm guessing, though. I can't think of any other reason why you'd just pass out and have no memory of anything, unless you're a wicked narcoleptic with severe amnesia issues that you neglected to tell us about."

You attempt to sit up, and this time BP doesn't stop you, letting you slowly rise up with a hand against the back of the unfamilar sofa for support. "How long will Mett be?"

"Shouldn't be too long now. Prob'ly just finishing off autographs and pictures."

"Did he really have to do that when he knew something had happened?"

"Listen, I'm all for calling that fucker out on his bullshit when need be," BP shrugs, holding his hands (...paws?) up defensively, "but I agree that the show must go on. From all the videos I've seen, he's doing a great job of just carryin' on. He's a good actor though, so there's that. A lot of people paid a lot of money for their tickets - he's most likely in some legal contract. You wouldn't believe how often I studied contracts and laws back in the underground to try and find loopholes in my job."

He has a point, and you're not going to berate Mettaton for not being here. Part of the reason why everyone loves him is because of how much he loves and cares for his fans, and you don't want to be that person and insist that he cuts corners in his job for you. Besides, like BP said, he should be here soon.

 

\---

 

You're this close to falling asleep again, _this fucking close,_ when a familiar figure bursts through the door.

"I want to know who did it and I want them gone," the figure demands, heels clicking after them. After _him_. It's obvious who it is. BP flinches and hisses, sounding more cat-like than you've ever heard him, but he keeps a strong hold on whatever he's smoking. "Oh! You're awake!"

"I am now," you say, not quite giving him the stank eye because you can't bring yourself to be mad at him given the situation. In an instant, he's by your side, crouching at the side of the sofa and staring at you with softened eyes. Neither of you really speak for a while, until Mettaton suddenly lifts a gloved finger and runs it over a part of the sofa near you, breaking eye contact.

"Are you okay now, darling?" he asks, still distracted by the sofa.

"Yeah- _fuck,_ what is it with everyone and that bit of the sofa?" You crane your neck to look: a pink patch glares back at you tauntingly. You know _exactly_ what it is. Mettaton knows _exactly_ what it is. Even _Burgerpants_ probably knows _exactly_ what it is.

You leave the elephant in the room alone, finally.

"...Anyway, I woke up here and don't remember much, but how did the concert go?" you ask, trying to maintain polite conversation while he furiously scrubs at the patch with the tip of his finger. When he doesn't reply, you speak up. " _Mettaton_."

There. He suddenly stops and looks back at you. "Yes? Yes! it was fine, but sweetheart, that's irrelevant right now. How do you feel?"

"Rough, but I'm not feeling any worse than I do with a hangover," you say. "I nearly napped again before you came back in and I feel...slightly better?"

"Maybe we should take you to the hospital," Mettaton mumbles, seemingly disregarding any parts in which you mentioned that you felt alright.

"I'll be fine," you reassure him, managing a smile. He smiles back. It seems to settle him, at least, which makes you relax more - you hate seeing Mettaton on edge. "Just...could you get me a glass of water, please, babe?"

His fans whirr at the use of the pet name, which in turn makes you giggle. Bless his metallic little heart. He holds eye contact for a little while longer before standing and dusting his legs off (even though there's no dust or anything that could possibly ruin his appearance), and then clearing his throat. He turns to head over to the small ensuite area when he notices Burgerpants and jumps more than you've ever seen him. Someone's particularly flinchy today.

BP just takes another drag of the joint, puffs it out in one long breath, and nods. "Been here the whole time."

"Yes. I'm aware," Mettaton says, clearing his throat. He talks as he checks and double-checks the cupboards for a glass or anything you can drink from. "I, um...want to thank you."

"Welcome. Party over."

"Seriously. I know I was...somewhat of a dick of a boss, and even when you haven't been my employee, I feel like I've acted as though you're beneath me," Mettaton continues, still looking and not facing BP.

The cat looks over at you instead and says with a wink, "yeah, that's your job". You laugh.

"And I didn't even know you were here until earlier, and I know I'm a star but I can't think why you'd show up. Obviously my gorgeousness overrules any underlying hatred that you still have for me." (He settles on a plastic white tumbler on the side. Fuck the nice glasses.)

"Dude- Mett, I don't hate you."

"Regardless," he says with an air of finality, filling the cup up and actually turning to face Burgerpants when he finishes, "if you weren't there, I don't know what would have happened. I know fans at concerts, especially my concerts in particular because they're always such a riot and I know my fans are so hopelessly devoted to me that they- uh, they...oh dear."

"What?" you ask, chipping into the conversation. For a moment you're worried that some wiring or buttons inside him (that you got to play around with once, remember?) has gone wrong, but it seems like he's just had a memory blank.

"I just lost my train of thought. Fans, my fans, concerts- ah, yes! I know fans at concerts can be dangerous if they're drunk, but I never would've imagined that someone would do that. They must have known who you are," he says, looking over at you and then back at BP, "and made you a target, sweetheart. I hope they know that I consider them _dead_. Disowned as a fan. I love all my fans endlessly _except this dick in particular._ If I ever find out who it is, something very  _immoral_ and very very _illegal_ is going to happen, so let's just hope I never do."

"What's your point?" BP says irritably.

"My point is that I'm thankful you were there. If you weren't, something terrible could've happened, and I don't think I could live with myself knowing that I put my love in danger at a place where it should be completely safe. I owe you."

"Gimme a twenty and we'll call it even."

"What- that's so _specific_. What _for?"_

BP raises the joint between his weird finger-paw-toe-beans. Mettaton shakes his head in that 'fine, you do you' way that you've come to recognise and brings the cup over to you, supporting your back as you sit up and take a sip, just in case a sudden blood rush from whatever you had earlier affects you more than you realise. With that, he turns to face BP again.

"As much as I've come to love you, darling, can I spend the rest of the time here with the one I oh-so-adore?" he asks, referring to you. The cat nods and slides off the stool he was sitting on. "Thank you. It means a lot."

"No problem," he replies, donning the hood on his jacket to prepare for what's probably a freezing cold late night. And then, to you, "hey, kid. Stay safe and alive, alright? I'm not gonna fucking make pizzas by myself tomorrow".

You love that cat. You smile and he leaves swiftly, the faint trace of weed trailing after him and lingering in the air of the dressing room. Mettaton takes an involuntary deep breath in - even though he doesn't need to and has absolutely no reason to - and wrinkles his nose at the smell, quickly letting the air back out again.

"You can't go into work tomorrow," he says.

"I can. I'll be fine by then. Seriously." You place your hand over his, lacing your fingers together.

"But I worry."

"I know you do. It means a lot that you care so much, but I know my own limits. I'll be fine, I promise."

"As long as you're sure, sweetheart," he says with a nod, making himself comfortable on the sofa next to you. "...I don't think you know, but I was going to sing a song to you during the concert. Did you black out before or after that?"

"I don't even know, I don't remember even fucking going to the concert."

He looks more disappointed than you've ever seen him, giving you these big puppy dog eyes that make you want to reach out and yank him into a hug. You don't, though. You have more restraint than that, although it's not like it matters now that you're dating.

"Such a shame," he starts, adopting that familiar mischievous glint in his visible eye. "That means you didn't get to see my gorgeous legs in action."

"I've seen them so many times. So many. They've been wrapped around my neck, for Christ's sake."

You seem to hit some nerve somewhere with that, because his processors launch into action, whirring at the memory. His face plates heat up with their usual undertones of pink blush, and he slides a hand over the pink stain. As if that's gonna stop you from mentioning it. "Shhh. You don't get to talk about my points of vulnerability, honey."

"I do, and I am."

"Mhm, okay. I can't hear you, all I'm hearing from my neurotransmitters is a buzzing sound."

You watch him, shaking your head at his childish actions like a disappointed parent. He's just folded arms and a pouted lip away from being an excellent bratty teenager.

And then you find yourself watching him even more, still, even when you should've stopped staring. You take all of him in like it's the first time you've ever met him or seen him on TV, and he really is a glorious sight. You're so in love with him, and you always have been. Whether it's just been bubbling under the surface or rearing its ugly head at times, the love has always been there. And now that you're dating, having been through being friends and dating helpers and fuck buddies and enemies, you wouldn't have it any other way.

"I love you."

"...I love you too, darling." He squeezes your hand, and smiles wider than before. "Now let's get you out of this room, out of this arena, out of these clothes, and into a nice, warm, comfy, inviting bed."

 

\---

 

"The beast awakens," Burgerpants says drearily as you stroll into your workplace the next afternoon. You're sporting new energy, an accidental hickey, and most importantly, a smile. Both the cat and your coworker are beaming back at you, despite BP's tone of voice sounding usually monotonous. "Feelin' better?"

"I still don't remember any of the concert that I paid absolutely nothing for, but other than that, fan-fucking-tastic," you say, sliding behind the counter. BP gives you a thumbs-up and returns to the oven, and your coworker leans with her back against the front counter, arms folded in front of her. Her chestnut hair seems a little shorter today; not that you've particularly noticed before, but it's in a short enough bob for it to not need putting up or pinning back.

"Your hair looks great today," you say. "Never really noticed it before."

"It was getting far too long. I hadn't had a haircut since- uh, for a while. Decided to just...fuck it! Chop it off again!" she grins, puffing it with the palm of her hand. "I used to have it shorter, like this."

You watch the traffic head past. Nobody usually comes in at this time of day - give it an hour or so, when all the kids start heading out of local schools and looking for snacks, and the pizzeria will be full, but for now, it's just you, Burgerpants, and...uh...

"Hey," you say suddenly, snapping from your trance and apparently alerting your coworker out of hers, too. "We've been working together for while, but I...don't think I ever got your name."

She laughs behind her hand. "Took you long enough."

"That's a great name," you say sarcastically, rolling your eyes. "Seriously. BP's been here less time than I have, and he probably knows."

"You wanna know the truth? I already knew him," she says, dropping the biggest bombshell of your current career, "hence why I said something like 'if I didn't know you any better, I'd assume that something-something-something, but I _do_ know you better' to him before. A long while back. Shit, we're going back weeks. But that's a story for another day, I guess."

"Come oooon, there's nobody here," you plead, leaning back against the opposite counter. "Start from the beginning. And give me your name first,  _god."_

She clears her throat, and looks at the floor, smiling to herself, looking like she's remembering something, reminiscing inside the brain you haven't quite had the chance to pick at yet. You don't talk and disturb her, just in case. Eventually, she shakes her head and closes her eyes, looking back at you with a little sigh and a confident smile.

"My name's Frisk."

 

\---

 

He's lucky he even got his order in in time - he knows your working times, and he very nearly missed the end of your shift. Thinking about it as you stand in front of his apartment, you probably would've delivered it anyway, but still. He most likely ordered it to check up on whether you're doing okay since the concert disaster. 

 

He answers the door with the familiar little smirk on his face. You tilt your head and give him a mock-inquisitive look. "This pizza for you?"

 

He tugs at your sleeve, gently pulling you inside. "What did I tell you about checking your receipts?"

You roll your eyes and smile, passing the pizza box to him so you can dig out his receipt. There's a note in the 'delivery instructions' box, the place you always seem to skim over.

'Make it a pizza for two. <3'

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took like three fucking months but holy shit
> 
> i'm in kind of a bad state and generally apathetic but listen. i've wrote this. i've rewrote it. i've deleted it. i've rewrote the rewrite. i've let it sit in my notes far too long. finally i just decided to roll everything into one chapter, since i have no more ideas or writing juice left and it was never going to have a big ending anyway. sorry that there's no mic-drop finale and that it just sort of...fizzles. think of it as a metaphor for how the author is rn
> 
> i kind of pour all my thanks out in the previous notes anyway but i think it's probably obvious that i didn't intend to leave it this long and that there are reasons for it (hence this whole note sounding monotonous rather than lighter like the others) but hey ho, it's here and now i can stop panicking about finishing it up
> 
> thank you so much for sticking around this long. it's taken a number of months for only 13 chapters but to those who were along since the first chapter was released, to those who joined midway through and couldn't leave, to those who came for the smut and then fucked off, and to those still waiting ever so patiently for this final update, thank you from the bottom of my gay little heart. despite my terrible organisation skills and irregular updates, you've all been so supportive and the comments i've received are so wonderful, and for that, i'm very grateful.
> 
> now go and find a better hobby, you darling little robot-fuckers
> 
> love and kisses,  
> el  
> polarise.co.vu


End file.
